Elder Cultivator

Chapter 877

Despite his convictions, Anton wasnt very good at the whole staying away from the war thing. He hadnt actually gotten involved yet, but he was still relatively nearby. Yet he could have gone quite a bit further away for his current experiment.

At least his presence wasnt obvious to anyone, as he was southwest of Inistra studying a cluster of unbound stars. Nobody should be passing through the system, which made it useful for his current plan.

Just a month or so of meditation on the star made him more confident with his plans. He felt he should be able to form a connection to it. Of course, he still had an unattached star binding from beyond the one hundredth star, so it was possible that he might be misinterpreting that possibility. But in the worst case, he would bind the star in an unintended manner and strengthen the route between Inistra and Ceretos. It was better than intentionally burning his last binding just to experiment. Either he would call upon that link accidentally, or he would not. Better to hope he had some control.

The question that he had to answer was how he would bind to the earlier stars. They were already well set in place. Unlike the others, they were not empty and waiting to be filled. It was a question he pondered for some time. But ultimately, he came to the simple conclusion. They would just have to be replaced.

Anton would not advise anyone to mess around with the foundation of their cultivation, but he supposed he had enough experience to do so himself. The only question was what order to act in, if it even mattered.

His first star was the beginning of Body Tempering. Anton thought he knew which one it was, but truth be told that after they were initially created in the dantian each star tended to act just the same as the others. It was the act of forming them that enacted the changes upon the cultivator, not their continuing existence. From that point, they were merely sources of power. They mutually supported each other, but Anton could not guarantee with absolute certainty that he could distinguish one from the other.

Ultimately, Anton made a choice based on his own understanding. Since his hundredth star had been the first to make a connection to a star, it was better to work backwards from that point as much as he could.

As for how that would happen, it was a bit more complex than binding a star normally. As if such a thing were an everyday activity. But he had to be careful. First, he had to free up space by dissipating the star inside of him. Then he had to connect to another star. But that connection would require something more. Normally, he would just follow the principles of his hundredth star- without the parts where he turned himself to charcoal. Actually, that was it. It was more like the hundredth star, where he had never done it before.

Each star would be new, and he would have to intimately understand it before he could connect to it, instead of casually completing the task through the virtue of a high cultivation level, and letting the understanding come as a secondary result.

Anton moved closer to one of the stars in the group. A somewhat large white star, a yellow star, and a red dwarf all together. He shouldnt need to bind all of them, unless he anticipated a battle in that particular system.

He was quite glad he was more capable of protecting himself, as that allowed him to approach quite close to a star without frying himself. His bound stars didnt hurt him at all, but foreign ones could certainly destroy him. Still, he was much closer than hed ever been with Ceretos star. And much less likely to fry himself from the inside out, given his prior experience.

But it took him quite a bit of time to get fully acquainted with the glowing orb of heat. Anton let himself sink into the embrace of the stars warmth, and time slipped by him. It was a year later when he came out of his reverie, confident he could do what he intended.

He gently pulled at the strings of one of the stars within him, by his best estimate the ninety-ninth. He unraveled it peacefully, until it faded to nothing. He could feel the emptiness inside of himself waiting to be filled. Needing to be filled. He reached for his understanding of the nearby star, making it part of himself, and in a way making himself part of it.

It wasnt an instantaneous process, and Anton once more felt time pass nebulously. But when he finished, he felt the strong heat inside of him, channeled from this nearby star.

He nodded. Good. If he were to ask if he felt stronger because of what he had done, Anton would say he was not. Except, of course, that with another bound star his territory had expanded. And if he connected to any particularly special stars, he might learn something from their properties. But that was simply the way of cultivation at its core. It was another way to gain understanding into the mysteries of the world. More than simple numbers and words, but a true understanding.

Not that Anton thought that those who could describe stars with complex mathematical formulae were without value, but it was different. They could predict and understand the flow, while he could be part of it.

He stretched. The process might get faster with time, though he didnt intend to cut any corners in the future either. It wasnt a waste of time to begin with. Hed spent over a year here, focused on a single star. That was no worse for his overall level of cultivation than any other form of meditation, and it might even be a bit more efficient. It likely wasnt going to vastly shorten the length of time to achieve a proper new star from where it was, approaching the decade range, but as long as it wasnt slower it would be worth it. Now, he could begin a proper path from Ceretos to Inistra, and more quickly reach all the places along the way.

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Alliance fleets had fought their way past Trigold forces to reach Enzion. It was of no great significance, merely a step towards reaching their core- but that step was what made this battle important. Not enough for the branch head of the Order of One Hundred Stars to bind one of his few precious stars, however.

Sudheer thought it was too bad. Hed seen the sect head fight more than a few times, and he wanted to see Varghese do so as well. But perhaps hed get a chance later. For now, he was one of the Assimilation cultivators leading the charge. And charging was what he and the Silver Rhino Legion were best at.

Long in the past, Sudheer had fought an Augmentation cultivator of the Fearsome Menagerie. He couldnt quite say hed won that battle by himself, but from then to now hed grown stronger and was confident he could do so. As long as they were still limited by being in the lower realms.

The people here wouldnt be restricted, being fully adapted to natural energy- or rather, probably never having lived anywhere without. But they were also much weaker individually.

The first thing Sudheer did was crash into the middle of their local sect. They had some kind of barrier or whatever, but he had his body, his armor, and more speed than anyone sane entered an atmosphere with. As flames lit the atmosphere around him, he could kind of get why people studied the element. But a very short time later he had landed at his destination and there were no more flames.

Just a crater, a hundred meters wide. Hed been hoping for more, but that pesky barrier had slowed him down and the fortifications on the building had slowed his fall as well. So there were a few walls still standing on their great hall. Some sort of stupid throne thing had toppled, though.

Obviously the Fearsome Menagerie wasnt pleased with his entrance. They had all kinds of people rushing at him, taking on the guise of big animals. Some sort of ape, an elephant, giant lizards, and the like. Oh, and a rhino.

Poor kid didnt know what hit him. Well, that wasnt true. Obviously it was a rhino. The fellow certainly had enough insight to recognize the form of his own poor attempts to imitate the fantastic creatures. But alas, it was only a weak imitation. Better for him to die instead of continue with such poor training. Life Transformation with that level of insight was pathetic.

Sudheer was briefly entertained by some dragons and phoenixes, but their flames really didnt mean much when his armor was already red hot from that whole thing where he fell from the sky. But after he finished running them through, he remembered his goal.

There should be a core for the defensive formations. Break that and he would let everyone else in. He charged forward, from building to building, looking for this core. He either went through everyone in his way, or they were lucky or durable enough to be thrown away to the sides.

There was some formation stuff over there. And he found a vault. He hoped the urns werent important, because they broke when he came through the wall. Actually, what could be valuable that was so flimsy? Probably just worthless clay, perhaps art that didnt depict the true essence of beauty. Rhinos, of course.

If Sudheer was going to be honest for a moment, he had forgotten to ask if the core was supposed to be in the middle or somewhere else. He was fairly certain hed crashed into the middle. And following the flow of energy was just too much, with all these disciples attacking him. And there were tons of buildings in the way that were super annoying.

He couldnt find it. So he just turned towards the nearest defensive wall and crashed his way through, weaving in and out. Eventually enough of the stuff would be gone that it would all stop, right? Yeah, that sounded right.

He circled around the sect once, then turned. Yeah, there they were. The fleets and troop carriers. They could help him deal with the, uh the Sudheer looked around. Alright, so there wasnt really much left at this particular place. But hed figure out where the core was for the next place and everyone would be fresh still. There were more than a few sect bases on this particular world.

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Despite the particular success of Elder Sudheer of the Silver Rhino Legion, not everyone dominated in the assault on Enzion. And while they certainly came out with a clear victory, it was a cause for concern for some. Because it was just one planet of many, and those further towards the core had more durable defenses. The kind that would be risky to send such fellows at, because while a rhino might appear unstoppable, that was only up to the point where it hit its limit. Someone like him that met something that simply couldnt be overcome might crumple. Of course, nobody was willing to bet on it being any particular thing. It was likely that they would lose some Assimilation cultivators if they kept pushing. The Lower Realms Alliance could likely survive that cost, but moving too rapidly would only exhaust their forces. And they wanted to maintain a proper level of caution, not falling into any traps the enemy might lay. They were also far from the core of their power, limiting their full access to people of all cultivation ranks.

The Shining Cooperative was supporting them, of course, but they were only just sparking their own Assimilation cultivators. It would have been nice for the war to be over in a year or even a decade, but it might not be so simple. If nothing else, they had to think about how to deal with Twin Soul Sect members on larger planets. It was probably too late to prevent all transmission of information to the upper realms, either through proper communications or individuals dying, but they could still try to limit what made it through.

All the while, they would try to do their best to keep their own losses down. There was no point in wiping out the Trigold Clusters forces if they destroyed themselves.

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