Elder Cultivator

Chapter 1197

The goals that Anton had were somewhat different from Bear Hug’s, though not all that far. Bear Hug wished to be friends with every sapient individual among their planets, but Anton was not interested in being friends with them all. He felt a protective instinct, and he certainly wished to be on good terms, but for him friendship required something more. That something varied by individual, but ultimately it came down to wanting to spend more time together more than just generally wishing an individual to prosper.

Anton’s ultimate goal was for the system as a whole to accept him binding the star. Then they would have the protection of Unity. It was possible that they would not need it, as the Alliance controlled much of the surrounding area, but threats could come both internally or externally.

Anton’s experience with Unity was actually fairly recent, but he had come to know that it was more than just power. Perhaps power was the most insignificant of its offerings. There simply hadn’t been time to observe the long term effects, but in the decades since he’d reached the new stage the overall state of the Alliance had improved.

It was small things, mostly. Unexplained increases in efficiency as more people had access to what they needed, and were in turn able to provide more back to the community. For a small number of years it could have been a coincidence, but not for a sustained duration. Anton couldn’t take credit for all of it, of course, as the Alliance had been focused on universal growth from the beginning, but now people simply fit together better. It could be as small as a friendly neighborhood, or it could be the perfect gathering of minds to come up with the next generation of technological improvements or cultivation methods.

Anton didn’t know what was best for everyone, but they knew which was good enough. He had very little active participation in the process, except for circumstances like where people were gathered for Bounty. In that case he didn’t have an active star to call upon, and each step had to be more deliberate.

Bear Hug just liked people, which was great. One of those people happened to be a particularly angry briar patch… but said briar patch was becoming worn down by continued socialization. Slowly, still, because just the other day it had tried to ambush Bear Hug while they were resting.

It was entirely possible that Bear Hug didn’t sleep. If they did, it wasn’t all of them at once. Alternatively, it could have simply been the fact that the briar patch was anything but subtle. Either way, without Anton even interfering Bear Hug was awake and shortly thereafter spinning the briar patch around in the local lake.

“You should not attack people. Do you need more water? Sunlight will be available later.”

Words never ceased… and sometimes, the briar patch responded. “Release me.”

“Very well. I… promise.”

Bear Hug stopped, the two masses of plants drifting towards the shore. “You do have to mean it though.”

“The words are weird.”

“Which word? Promise? Better?”

“Yes. Promise and better are weird words.”

“Oh, you don’t know them! I will explain!”

Bear Hug was not great at explaining, in Anton’s expert opinion. Yet learning to communicate with those who were bad at it was part of their necessary growth. Eventually, they came down to some sort of conclusion.

Bear Hug flailed their limbs around as an exaggeration added to their energy words. “A promise is to tie your words to something important so that you don’t forget them or fail to act on them. And to be better is to be more, big, nice, friendly, and strong!”

The briar patch responded with significantly less enthusiasm. “I will be some of those things.”

“You need to be all of them! Promise.”

“I make a promise on myself that I will be… better,” they finally said.

“Very good! We should be friends now. You know that I am Bear Hug. What name should you have?”

“I am me. I don’t need another name.”

“Names are important! They are chosen so that others will know of you even if you’re very far away. Like on another planet. Or by another star.”

“At that distance, it doesn’t matter.”

“It does! People might want to come from very far to be your friends. But they will find it hard if they don’t know who you are. You don’t have to pick a name now, but you need to have one. It should fit you.”

Anton was beginning to get very good at telling when plants were annoyed. Or rather, he’d gotten pretty good at telling when the briar patch wasn’t

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“I won’t pester you about it.”

“Briar.”

“That is what you are,” Bear Hug said. “So pick a name that represents you.”

“That is the name. My name. Briar.”

“But it should represent what you do,” Bear Hug explained. “You need to think about-”

“I stab things with my briars. So I am Briar.”

“Anton! My friend is trying to pick a bad name!”

Anton revealed his energy. “Sorry to tell you, but Briar gets to choose. And they have. Nice to meet you, Briar.”

“I have already met this energy,” Briar said. “Why would you say that?”

“It’s only appropriate, now that you have a name,” Anton explained. “I’m welcoming you to your acceptance of being a person.”

Briar seemed to be thinking about that. Or perhaps not. “... I’m hungry. Do not stop me from feeding, Bear Hug.”

“Make sure to be conservative with your feeding! You need stuff to eat later!”

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Lev found himself back in the upper realms. The planet Meirus had been spared from the war between the great powers due to its presence inside of the distorted space protecting the Scarlet Alliance. Even so, there wasn’t much that remained of the hundred grand willows he had planted. Exactly one still stood, and that word wasn’t precisely accurate.

At some point, it had been trampled by some of the local wildlife, snapping the base so that it lay at an angle. Rather than perishing, however, it continued to stubbornly survive. That was the favorite sort of thing for Lev. He was certain Grandfather Willow would have tales of old troubles when it was young, based on the healed over scars on its trunk.

The tree wasn’t yet much more impressive than any other tree might be in an energy rich environment, but it had potential. Lev carefully observed how it had developed since his last visit- there hadn’t been many given how inconvenient it was to enter the upper realms.

But now, things were a bit better. He also didn’t intend to be quite as circumspect as before. He could plant them all over the Scarlet Alliance’s territory… including the rest of the Midfields, since they would be expanding there eventually.

He’d have to start planting right away. Who knew when troubles would begin again? He wanted healthy trees to be everywhere. The problem was that many planets wouldn’t be suited. Even if he knew how to modify the seeds to make them prosperous, they’d need to be maintained. Perhaps he should call upon some of the Grasping Willows that had ascended. There weren’t terribly many, but the sect had been around for long enough that there would be some.

Lev wouldn’t say they were beholden to him while in the upper realms, as they should be able to choose their own priorities, but he could certainly make a request. There were plenty of others who might wish to aid his project as well. @@novelbin@@

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Erin swept her senses over Paradise, who was swimming back and forth impatiently. “It’s not going to take that much longer, but let me remind you that even if there isn’t anything alive there, you shouldn’t hit it hard enough that the gravitation doesn’t keep it together.”

It was a serious concern she had, after seeing how excited Paradise was. She turned her attention to the surrounding ships. They weren’t there to aid with the transportation of the planet as much as they were to guide its direction.

They had to be very precise, and that included the amount of speed it ended up with. At least, until it was at the edge of the lower realms. From there, it was pretty trivial to get it into the right system for Ratna to deal with.

This particular planet had been chosen for being infused by a high amount of natural energy but being otherwise uninteresting. They would prepare another planet with some vegetation… later. That would be a much more difficult project. More time consuming. Even considering the fact that this one was going to take something like fifty years to reach the upper realms.

“Calculations are complete,” came a message over the radio. “Preparing guiding lasers.”

Erin nodded, acknowledging the transmission. “You hear that Paradise? You can do your thing. Carefully.”

Paradise flicked his head as if to indicate that he was always careful. But if there weren’t people’s lives at stake… he wasn’t always. Paradise was always careful around humans, though.

The giant turtle took what looked like a slow and wide turn, but was actually extremely rapid. It was just that at planetary scales, it took a bit to turn to the right angle. Then he rushed the large ball of rock. Erin channeled the energy the two of them shared through the cushion of water Paradise projected, distributing the force evenly across one side of the planet. It still creaked a bit. Paradise seemed to not want to spend months accelerating the object.

Erin thought that was probably preferable as well. This was a rather out of the way location, which made it rather difficult for the Island Tenders to receive additional supplies. They were self-sufficient, but luxuries were still made elsewhere. Usually they were around occupied planets, so it wasn’t an issue.

The Lower Realms Alliance wasn’t keen on giving up planets too often. For anyone but Ratna, they might not have even considered it. Even if they had around them a great quantity of planets, it was difficult to accept permanently giving up so much. However, the price was worth it. There were thousands of planets, and very few Domination cultivators. When thinking of it like that, as a price for future cooperation was quite reasonable.

It wasn’t really fair to allow her to risk so much for nothing, anyway. Even if she were Durff’s aunt, she’d pretty much openly chosen sides against her own region. What enemies she already had would be more prone to moving against her, and others might join them. That said, they still needed a lot of guts to move against a Domination cultivator. Especially after four died in a single battle.

Erin was fascinated to watch a planet bend and warp. It easily settled back into a mostly round configuration as gravity drew it together, but it was amazing how sufficient acceleration could disturb so many thousands of kilometers of rock. Small pieces were flying off, sticking to Paradise’s snout. She’d make sure they stuck with the rest when they let it fly.

They followed the path of the lasers, with ships in front to set the pacing they needed to match. The path was carefully chosen to not cause undue gravitational influence on systems it was passing by, and obviously they didn’t want it to get anywhere close to crashing into another planet or a star. The former would probably be barely noticeable but waste all their efforts… or devastating, depending on the relative velocities. The latter would be a mess that needed to be cleaned up no matter what, and would require starting the project again.

Losing decades of progress, even if it wasn’t active work, wasn’t exactly on the top of anyone’s plans for the future. So it was carefully calculated, and it would be watched. They could spare a small group of people, rotating in and out in shifts, for something as valuable as a planet.

Before it reached the border, they had plans to seal in the natural energy. That wasn’t something Erin would have anything to do with, though. Just the pushing.