Elder Cultivator

Even after they withdrew from systems, the Scarlet Alliance left behind probes to monitor people coming and going. Their ultimate goal was to track the movements of the Silver Fang leadership. There were several among them who had been responsible for many of the early attacks, and taking them out would go a long way towards forcing the Silver Fang to surrender.

The information from said probes was slightly delayed in reaching the Scarlet Alliance, as the fastest methods of communication were also high enough power to be easily detected. However, by analyzing enemy patterns and their historical movements they hoped to predict an optimal time and place for an assault.

That unfortunately meant more waiting, though they weren’t inactive. Most of their attacks were focused on planets closer to the border, but they still occasionally launched focused attacks on poorly defended planets deeper into Silver Fang territory.

If the war ended sooner it would be better for the Scarlet Alliance, as the conflict placed them in an unstable situation. If the Citadel of Exalted Light thought to take advantage of the conflict they could find themselves at extreme risk… but trouble could come from other sects in the Trigold Cluster as well. Many of the nearby sects had been seen to be repositioning their forces, though whether simply to defend themselves or because of eventual plans to aid the Silver Fang it was unclear.

The closest sects of note were the Twirling Forest, the Creeping Fire Sect, and the Fearsome Menagerie. Fortunately the latter two sects had some amount of buffer zone from much smaller sect, but they were still close enough to prove a threat. The instant any sort of reinforcements arrived in the deeper Silver Fang territory, the Scarlet Alliance would have to react.

-----

Much too far to affect the war even if he had been willing to try another blatant attack on the upper realms, Anton was surveying an empty system. At least, it appeared empty at first. However, he noticed signs he’d seen before. Extremely basic life was visible, plants and animals that formed a basic but incomplete ecosystem. It didn’t take him long to pick out underground civilizations. He had several examples.

As for why they would be that way… it was fairly simple. Invasions from the upper realms weren’t something that could be trivially ignored. Either they had been nearly wiped out, or they chose to isolate themselves to prevent such a situation.

The two planets were in the inner system, both within the expected size range for terrestrial planets. Anton noticed quite a few differences in the life on their surfaces, though he wasn’t certain if that was due to differing climates or an intentional lack of standardization. Then again, it was also possible that the planets weren’t spacefaring. At the very least, he spotted nothing in-transit, and he would have expected at least something at any given time if that was the case.

Still, two populated planets in one system indicated that they had been part of a spacefaring group at some point, though it was possible that the colonies had been independently established by differing groups and left with none of the required knowledge. Much of the settlement of the lower realms was so many cycles into the past that the knowledge was effectively erased from history, unless the upper realms had been directly involved and kept records somewhere.

Probing deeper beneath the surface, Anton was surprised to find that the formations concealing the planets’ energy were not accompanied by defensive barriers keeping anything out. Perhaps they only had the energy required to power the concealing formation, but after reaching through that he felt sufficiently large quantities of natural energy that he thought they could do more.

Anton didn’t probe much deeper than that, as people deserved some chance at privacy. The only question in his mind was how he was going to introduce himself- because this system was right along the route he thought would be optimal for reaching the Chaotic Conglomeration.

He didn’t want to spook them. But no matter what he did, he imagined they would be quite surprised. He didn’t particularly want to hide, but keeping his energy constrained would probably be wise. If they weren’t spacefaring, they might not even have Assimilation cultivators or some equivalent. It would be quite a shock for an Enrichment cultivator to show up.

Though he could have thought himself in circles forever, Anton ultimately just picked one planet and flew over to it. He searched around for an entrance to the underground… and simply landed next to it. He was partially concealing his power, but his presence itself wasn’t hidden. He walked forward and, quite unlike Xicil, went directly into a tunnel with no sort of physical barrier blocking him. He wondered if that was part of some sort of system to convince people that there weren’t any humans here?

“Hello?” Anton called out, his voice echoing down the hall. “Anyone here?”

He wondered if they knew he could hear them whispering. Just because they were beyond the barrier that blocked outwards transmission of natural energy didn’t mean that such simple things wouldn’t pass. Whoever created the barrier probably wasn’t concerned about someone yelling and it being heard from afar, given all the empty space in the way and all that.

Anton continued forward, only to be assaulted by a hammer and an axe. The former struck him in the head, while the latter went for his belly. “Hello. I would appreciate being directed to whoever is in charge. Do my words make sense to you?” They should, as he’d understood their whispers. The local language wasn’t too divergent.

The man and the woman who had attacked him failed to respond, though not because they seemed to be ignoring him. Instead, they seemed to be trembling uncontrollably. Anton flicked them on the forehead, using exactly enough energy to break their natural defenses and only leave a somewhat powerful finger strike after that. They staggered back half a step.

“Bam. You’re dead. Or you could be, if that was my intention. Now then, will one of you speak?”

The man managed to calm himself first. “Forgive us, senior. We didn’t-”

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“Yes, yes. You didn’t know I was this strong. Though you really should have thought about it a little bit. Ah, it appears the situation is resolving itself. I’m going to assume that’s who I need to speak to.”

The two cultivators were in early Life Transformation. They were far from weak, and the energy they displayed when attacking Anton was sufficient to draw quite a bit of attention. That was why it was natural that the strongest cultivators in the area would notice. Including one Assimilation cultivator. Or Worldbinding? Most likely some other name entirely, but some method for post-Life Transformation advancement. The man didn’t seem to be terribly far along that path.

Ahead of him floated seventeen swords. Chikere would have liked to meet the guy. It was a shame that was no longer possible.

Seeing that Anton hadn’t pushed past or killed the guards, the man tempered his response. “We were not expecting any arrivals.” He was not overly polite… but he also wasn’t overbearing.

“I would assume not. I did not see any traffic within your system, nor was there any in the others nearby. We have not met before, so I could not send a message ahead.”

“What is your purpose here?” the man asked.

“To introduce myself, and to learn about your world. I am Anton, by the way,” he inclined his head. “I come from another system, quite far away. My path has brought me here, and I noticed your people living underground. So I thought it appropriate to investigate.”

The man nodded, not lowering his flying swords but not bringing them unnecessarily close to Anton. “Togoldor of the Swirling Sword Sect,” the man introduced himself. “Are you not from Airus?”

“Is this Airus?” Anton pointed at his feet. “Either way, I am not.”

“Airus is the other planet in our system,” Togoldor explained.

Anton nodded. “I see. I noticed them as well, but I chose to visit here first. And this planet?”

“Xaphiot. May I ask what style you practice?”

“The One Hundred Stars,” Anton declared. “I believe the aura should be distinct enough to differentiate me from others you know.”

“If you speak of your internal energy… I sense more than one hundred.”

“Certainly,” Anton agreed. “But there were only one hundred on the path to Ascension. Though I diverged from that path, much like yourself. What do you call it? We tend to use the terms Assimilation or Worldbinding.”

“You share information quite easily,” the man said.

“If the name of a phase is so critical, then I would not imagine the mysteries contained within it to be terribly profound,” Anton shrugged.

“True enough,” the man said. “We call it Grounding.”

“Interesting. That opens many questions, if you wish to discuss. However, it is not terribly comfortable here standing in the hall.” Anton used his energy to send the his next words only to Togoldor’s ears. “Nor does it make it seem like you are in control of the situation. I do not mind meeting you outside, within somewhere you choose… or simply leaving the planet, if you cannot tolerate the presence of outsiders.”

The man thought for a moment. He responded secretly to Anton’s worse, transmitting his words through where their energy met. “Would you then go to Airus?”

“I would,” Anton confirmed. He wondered if the two planets were enemies. Though the man wasn’t quite so aggressive as he would think, in that case. Perhaps rivals, or uneasy neighbors.

The man withdrew his blades, until they were spinning point down around him. “You should come with me, honored guest. We have much to discuss.”

Anton followed behind the man, keeping his senses constrained to what he felt was a polite distance around them- which was still several kilometers of tunnels. Past the entrance, the tunnels quickly became constructed instead of naturally found, though he didn’t expect any civilization that lived underground for long to rely only on natural tunnels. That was simply unrealistic, unless their planet happened to have an excess of caverns and the like. Once population reached a certain point, they would fill up what there was- and artificial tunnels were required to connect between different cities efficiently.

“I notice you have extensive fungus farms,” Anton commented. “Have you considered surface farms, to increase your variety of produce? Or would that have too many issues? I suppose visitors from the upper realms are often far less friendly.”

“I don’t know much about farming,” the man admitted, “But that is certainly one reason.”

“The last cycle saw significant defeats for the upper realms. So this would be the best time… though if you have gone unnoticed, it might be best to remain that way.” Anton wasn’t going to give the pitch for the Lower Realms Alliance just yet. He wanted to at least know something about both planets first.

And whatever it was at the core of the planet that he could barely avoid noticing. Some sort of powerful formation, though what it did he couldn’t tell without probing more deeply. For the moment, he kept himself constrained.

-----

Over the course of the next few days, Anton met with many individuals from Xaphiot. Word spread quickly, and sect heads from all throughout the world rushed to meet him. That told Anton something, because even with post-Life Transformation power it was difficult to travel so quickly. Especially through tunnels.

Even though he was trying not to probe too deeply, he had to keep some awareness of his surroundings. He couldn’t help but notice when people of great power were suddenly around, instead of coming in from the edge of his senses. It didn’t matter that they appeared from inside a sealed area- once they stepped out, they appeared with no clear way they got there.

But of course, there was a way. Teleportation had long been known to Anton. Indeed, while it was not necessarily easier than space travel, it was often more valuable and thus more well explored. It was possible there was some other method using tunnels hidden even from Anton’s senses, but he had a fairly good picture of everything around what he expected were teleportation chambers. The only question was how to ask about that.

As for the visitors, everyone wanted to meet with and curry favor with the new powerful visitor. At least Anton learned about the local politics- and that while they were not currently at war with Airus, they often had conflicts. Still, that was better than the situation with Tenoun’a and Shrenn, so Anton thought the system was in a better place to start out. He just needed to figure out how they felt about the upper realms. He sensed no members of any sects he would recognize, but that didn’t mean there weren’t some he was unaware of.

He even checked for members of the Twin Soul Sect- even with Sudin dead, the lower realms might not know that and could cause all sorts of trouble.

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