Elder Cultivator

The first extra was Durff and that was fine. But soon enough it was looking like it would no longer be a small expedition. More than a few jumped forward at the prospect of practical experience. Velvet hadn’t really been intending to support the war on a large scale, she had mostly mentioned that they would likely have to fight while they were there. But now people were taking it as a sort of primary goal.

Chidi was fine. He was capable of being subtle, and might help balance out Durff. Or something like that. He needed more practical experience against strong opponents than he could get without the Scarlet Alliance entering another war.

The twins? Misi and Juli just wanted to learn from or about the Chaotic Conglomeration. Both, probably. That was fine.

With all of those people being together, obviously Jyotsana would be invited along. It would be good for her to get more practical experience with her ‘new’ techniques- though she’d had them a short lifetime.

Somehow Yuval ended up on the list. Maybe because of Chidi, maybe because of Jyotsana as a fellow flame cultivator of some sort.

When Timothy tried to get involved, Velvet had to draw the line. “Unless we’re planning to look like we’re publicly supporting the was from that end, we can’t also have you,” Velvet said. “There’s plausible deniability for myself,” Velvet said. “Except for Durff and Chidi, the rest aren’t really publicly known. However, Chidi could be any sword cultivator… as long as those who fight him don’t survive. Bringing along the great defender of the Scarlet Alliance…” Velvet shook her head. “Well, that sounds like quite different plans. Plus… Yuval needs the opportunity to feel independent.”

Obviously the others would watch after him, as the youngest of the bunch. Especially Velvet and his brother.

“Fair enough,” Timothy said. “Though you should think about Durff in that case.”

“He doesn’t use a cultivation style the Scarlet Alliance is known for, except for… him. With his arm reattached and new armor concealing his identity…” she shrugged. “Well, I’m hoping to keep it to a level where it looks like maybe just one lone individual. And he made good points about how it won’t make much difference in them wanting to kill us. You’re still needed here though.”

“If you still want to go somewhere, convince your wife to run off on an adventure. She’s not busy anymore.”

“If you count going from constantly doing a thousand things to just a hundred… sure,” Timothy said. “Perhaps one of the new Everheart systems if we can get there… and once we know that they’re not trying to murder absolutely everyone. The rules might have shifted.”

“I wouldn’t recommend that,” Velvet said. “But for her, it makes sense. Anyway, we shouldn’t bring more than this group unless we’re planning to make it into an official delegation of some sort… which would be difficult considering the tiny thing known as ‘all of the Exalted Quadrant’ being in the way.”

“I’ll let you know if Catarina comes up with an enhancement in teleportation. Though it’s not like she wouldn’t be the one to tell you first.”

“Deep subspace seems promising. Except for that being Everheart stuff.”

Timothy sighed. “Yeah. And with him confirmed alive instead of just assumed alive, it’s a dozen times more risky. Even if he’s more positively inclined towards our faction, encounters with him could still be costly.”

“And using that stuff could open up our territory to him wandering around.” Velvet shook her head. “I’m just glad the one location we found didn’t get converted into an ‘Everheart System’. That would have sandwiched the Scarlet Alliance. Instead… well, I guess we’re still close to the first one. So he’s never as far as we might like.”

“Indeed. Good luck. Take care of my sons, and the rest of yourselves. I don’t want to have to go on some sort of vengeance quest at my age.”

“You still look thirty,” Velvet pointed out.

-----

Velvet was ultimately glad that more people were coming along on the journey. It wasn’t a short trip, and being alone for all of it would have been rather tedious. She would have been stopping on populated planets to try to learn information, but really she should be leaving the spying to the rest of her network. Unless there was a specific reason, there was no point in risking herself. Velvet would be the first to admit her techniques weren’t perfect, and she could be found out.

Though, she was always trying to draw closer to that perfection. Domination was still a tricky stage to think about, and honestly it wasn’t even clear if it would fit her. Then again, that was partially a lack of knowledge. Ratna of the Guardians of the Veiled Brilliance was a good example, as her style was not too far away from Velvet’s. It was just the matter of forming an anchor and what that really meant that was in question.

Besides, the Scarlet Alliance had many reasons to closely scrutinize various forms of cultivation advancement. They didn’t necessarily believe they could make something better than Domination- that would be doubly arrogant without even understanding it in the first place- but they would want the process to be as smooth as possible if any of them were to try.

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The Exalted Quadrant and the Trigold Cluster could probably afford to throw a hundred Augmentation cultivators at Domination and only get one back, but they had a massive population and stable strength. Or rather, what had been stable strength. It had only been a few years but the Trigold Cluster was showing some serious unrest since Sudin’s death.

But other people were dealing with that, and keeping the Exalted Quadrant equally off balance was a good use of time. Velvet could also see Runa again and maybe get some new voidsteel.

-----

Misi and Juli had about a million questions about voidsteel, most of which Velvet couldn’t answer. “Why does it only appear over on that border?”

“I don’t know. I would assume it appears other places, but nobody has noticed the signs in Scarlet Alliance territory.”

“What signs are there?” Misi asked.

“Areas where energy stops functioning, more or less.”

“Is it related to-”

“There’s no indication it’s related to void ants,” Velvet answered. “Energy negation in any form being ‘void’ is quite a sensible nomenclature.” As for the actual void ants, they were still in the process of discussing repatriation to the upper realms. That was another point of danger- if they were known to be associated with the Scarlet Alliance in any way.

It was a good thing that the ultimate plans had involved them boarding ships to the lower realms, because the border worlds were being scoured. To be fair, if they weren’t friends Velvet would have found it quite reasonable to wipe out void ants as well.

Not being able to acknowledge them was frustrating. She hadn’t grown close to any of them, but they were still steadfast allies- and having to somewhat pretend they don’t exist was a sign of weakness. They still weren’t quite where she would want to be.

“How does it disrupt energy?” Misi asked.

“This would have been an easier question to answer if I still had my blade,” Velvet pointed out.

“We didn’t really know what it did,” Juli pointed out. “You didn’t go around telling people about it. It just felt like a dagger.”

“That was the point,” Velvet said. “I’d rather not have people learning counter techniques.”

“How could they even have any?” Misi asked. “Nobody- okay, almost nobody could counter something like that in a zone without energy.”

“It doesn’t create a zone,” Velvet pointed out.

“But… the ore does? Is the ore stronger?”

“... No?” Velvet frowned. “I guess the effect is stronger, but it’s kind of impossible to carry around a mountain of energy negation. Yes, even for you, Durff.”

Durff nodded. “I’d sink into the ground.”

His confidence in that being the only problem was astounding.

“The material is rather brittle. It might also fall apart,” Velvet said. She wasn’t going to bring up whether he could carry enough without energy. He had been training with various body temperers, and the issues of his surroundings were something that would have to be contended with regardless of his own fitness.

“A shame,” Chidi said. It was a small ship, so unless conversations were specifically made private everyone could hear. “I would have liked a blade made from said material. But I need something sturdy and capable of being a functional sword without energy.”

“Yeah, then you don’t want voidsteel,” Velvet confirmed. “I had to be very careful with how I used that dagger, or I could have shattered it on armor. Or even broken it twisted up in durable cloth.”

“I wonder what it will feel like. The area around it,” Chidi added.

“Like nothing,” Velvet said. “Which will probably be highly uncomfortable for you.”

Chidi nodded. “Like the moment of Negation, then.”

Chidi had never explained why he hadn’t tried to get eyes somehow. With his position, there had to be some sort of miracle medicine that could grow eyes that were never there. Or failing that, artificial implants made with tech. Then again, he didn’t really need eyes except where there was literally no energy. That wasn’t something anyone ever expected to run into- unless they made such an area themself.

It could be stubbornness, but more likely he worried about any significant change throwing off his technique. Sight might make him weaker. It didn’t follow directly from anything, but cultivation didn’t always follow logic.

While Misi and Juli could study the large piles of information they had with them- both physical and more ephemeral- the others couldn’t really train on the ship. Velvet, perhaps, but using a sword or hammer would be terrible. Fire was even worse, if it went wrong, and unlike a larger battleship they didn’t have any areas for containment. Thus, people focused more on whatever they could do without significant space… or just interacting with the others.

They’d doubtless get plenty of practical experience among the Chaotic Conglomeration. Before that, they could focus on discussion of cultivation. Only two pairs of them followed the same general path, the twins and the fire cultivators. Though Jyotsana and Yuval were quite far apart in terms of how they actually fought most of the time.

Yuval preferred to fight up close, wreathing his body in flames. Jyotsana had moved further away from such styles in her reborn life, preferring to focus on a wider area. That said, they still had insights to exchange between the two of them, and cultivators could speak on their insights pretty much forever.

-----

Their journey was actually progressing more quickly than the path to Zaur’s anchor. They were in a different style of ship, with more of a focus on speed than stealth. The second factor would come through the best possible method- distance. They were effectively going ‘over’ the core systems of the Exalted Quadrant rather than through them.

The slowdown from having a longer route was more than made up for by not having to limit their speed. While the systems they were moving through were nominally in Exalted Quadrant territory, practically they didn’t have anyone but wandering cultivators present- and usually not even those.

They didn’t even need to enter most systems, stopping only to replenish the ship’s energy stores when necessary. If they did encounter any enemies they couldn’t beat they could outrun them. Assuming they weren’t a Domination cultivator, of course. Though if they happened to run across a roaming Domination cultivator then they would have to consider it fate. Chidi would certainly give a good attempt at taking them out. And Durff might actually be able to hold them long enough for Chidi to grasp the flow of their energy.

But if they actually had any choice, they would be avoiding such dangers. They would fight on the journey, but they intended to avoid conflicts as much as possible until they came to the Chaotic Conglomeration- and joined up with people Velvet knew. Fighting random battles might technically benefit their alliance, but she would prefer to work with the Spirit Slicing Sect and any others who she knew were decent.

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