Elder Cultivator

Even if messages sent to the Scarlet Alliance had a shorter round trip than most locations in the Trigold Cluster, Ratna still found it somewhat cumbersome to coordinate with them long term. Part of that involved all the infrastructure she needed to build within her territory, as she was many centuries behind. Perhaps further than that, in terms of understanding, but building up the necessary steps to match was still a lengthy process. More complicated was dealing with the Distant Shadow Sect without giving away her total control over the sect.

At points, Ratna herself went to visit the Scarlet Alliance. She rarely made a public appearance, not because she did not wish to advertise the alliance but because advertising her departure from her territory carried some risk. Not much, since most people feared retaliation, but some individuals would be more bold, thinking their actions would more easily slip beneath notice. They would even be correct.

Technically, Ratna didn’t have to travel to reach the Scarlet Alliance. Just to reach the core systems. After all, the Guardians of the Veiled Brilliance was an official member now.

Regardless of semantics, though, they were still separated… for the moment. There was clearly some momentum to expand into the Trigold Cluster- officially or not. Ratna even had intend to slowly expand her territory westward, but that was a long term project and it might even conflict with her current goals. Specifically, securing the borders of her territory.

Obviously she never left them undefended, but it was in the same tradition as most- armies of cultivators and fleets within border systems, ready to chase down anyone who tried to pass by. But as it was still mainly open space, nothing technically stopped them except the capabilities of their ship and how far they could travel without replenishing their energy. Fortunately, the answer was usually five or ten lightyears, requiring them to dip into most systems along a particular path. But they had been pushing their capabilities lately precisely because of the Scarlet Alliance. Even if they didn’t have all of their tech, there were advancements to be made in the arena of formations that they simply hadn’t pushed for.

Ratna didn’t realize how lazy people had been. That included Domination cultivators- though calling them lazy in the traditional sense was a bit disingenuous. They never stopped working to improve their personal power, and that usually meant growing the power of their sects. It was simply that they used traditional methods from bygone millennia. Tried and true… but barely improved in all that time. They weren’t pushing for acceleration of their growth.

And the Scarlet Alliance did- in a rather terrifying manner. Ratna was glad she’d gotten a foot in the door early, because even as a Domination cultivator it would have been difficult to secure a strong position after the great war. It didn’t technically last very long, but that was because most of the devastation was concentrated into one large battle in which multiple Domination cultivators were killed.

None of which were allied with the Scarlet Alliance.

Huge deadly battles were somewhat concerning, but concentrating defensive forces into a single position seemed quite advantageous. Ratna at least wanted the option. So she had proposed that Catarina help her set up a similar system. It was difficult, as her territory was more widespread- instead of concentrated vaguely in a sphere around a central point. That was how the Scarlet Alliance had started, at least. Now they were filling out the Scarlet Midfields quite intentionally.

Catarina herself hadn’t come to assess the situation, but dozens of competent individuals had traveled throughout Ratna’s territory, taking measurements to determine how a spatial distortion might be achieved. So far, the results were that it would have to be temporary- it would take too much power to be continuous, given the configuration. They did have suggestions for expanding her territory that would improve her results, however.

It was only a matter of doing so without causing too much trouble for herself. As a Domination cultivator, Ratna could get away with much. She and her sect were powerful. But certain claims would result in surrounding groups fighting back- perhaps in concert.

She also couldn’t afford to make too many enemies in the near future because of the next planet coming her way. The first one had already been a great boon to her sect, slowly being dismantled for lower energy imbued stone and metal. Second Gift, as the planet had somehow been named, would carry much more- organic matter that could be used for a much wider variety of projects.

She’d even heard some rumors that maybe it would reach her alive. They weren’t well substantiated, but even Catarina hadn’t outright denied it. Something about the plan being in development and uncertain. Ratna would gladly give up several of her own systems for something like that, if it was possible. Not that it was on offer or would actually be an equivalent price. It was a big promise even for the Scarlet Alliance, despite what they had already done. She wasn’t planning to count her chickens before they hatched. Though some well frozen chickens might still be valuable.

They could trade with the Scarlet Alliance for such things, but transportation on the scale of a planet was… far more than could easily be achieved. Ratna would have been willing to compromise on her deal if they couldn’t actually deliver even the first planet, but now she couldn’t help but wonder. Her only concrete plans involved frozen wood, which would hopefully seal the energy inside.

Ratna’s further plans to connect the territory of her two sects would have to begin afterwards, and it might even occur after the next shift in the Tides. Ratna didn’t quite know what plans the rest of the upper realms had, but it was unlikely they would settle down and do nothing. It might not be anything that was expected, but sadly Ratna wouldn’t be included in such discussions.

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Vlasta of the Distant Shadow Sect, however, might be an exception. A persona that was less prestigious would be included in fewer details, especially if her sect wouldn’t commit to joining in on a plot, but she could still learn something. If she found the time. If she hadn’t heard about what happened with Everheart and his projections, she might be tempted to try to get into the field in that manner. Then again, there were reasons nobody else had kept wide scale long term personal projections before. Forcefully receiving memories at an inopportune time might be the least of the potential threats.

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In just a few short decades, which was both long and short, Aerona had convinced the Origin Cycle to integrate into the Lower Realms Alliance. Various sects had different concerns, and ultimately they had insisted on keeping their concealment from the upper realms. That put them in an official secret state, but Aerona was satisfied with the result. They had much to benefit- and the Alliance could as well.

Aerona herself didn’t know precisely how valuable different technological paths would be to the Alliance. Perhaps nobody did. But if nothing else, having access to more brilliant minds would be worthwhile. The plan was to connect them to the Unified Sector, the people of which had been expanding outward into other systems for quite some time now. The presence of hiveminds made them unique among the sections of the Lower Realms Alliance, though perhaps not as much nowadays.

Unity cultivators like Anton didn’t create true hiveminds, but there was a connection between people. It was far broader, with no resolution of individual wants or needs, but it was a connection between many people nonetheless. Aerona accomplished similar results in a very temporary fashion. However, she was looking forward to the future when her insights built up. To her, Unity was actually an achievable stage. The only question was how many people would make the attempt before her.

Probably Lev, though his method was a consistent but slow one. Vincent was another possibility with an Assimilation particularly suited, though like Aerona he was rather recent to reach Enrichment. There wasn’t a set time for how long it would take to surpass a stage, however, and the flow of centuries continued on without ceasing.

Aerona couldn’t ignore that it was also likely Devon would reach Unity before her. His style wasn’t natively suited to cooperation, but he’d long before encountered many who shared similar scars on their hearts, a vast number in the current Unified Sector. And while the trauma had been healed as much as was possible, many of that first generation of freed cultivators still lived, molding the society around themselves.

It was actually one of the best prospects for future Unity cultivators long term, as they had both hiveminds and the less permanently fused Confluence cultivators. From what Aerona had observed, about half of potential Confluence cultivators from outside the hiveminds chose to Ascend into the upper realms. No hivemind cultivators ascended- if they were the type, they would have left the hivemind long before.

It was one unique feature the upper realms hadn’t yet interacted with much, nor was it likely they ever would. Unless a whole community ascended at once. That was possible- if only on the theory level. It was unlikely for a large enough group of purely Life Transformation cultivators to form, so there were many rough details about bringing others along. Shipping off those who were left behind wouldn’t be a good result, either. Transplanting lower realms cultivators into the upper realms without them ascending was a good way to cut off their future growth. That was something that had been presumed and then confirmed unintentionally as some individuals took the newer mobility as an opportunity to settle elsewhere.

Not everyone was concerned about continual cultivation growth, though. Aerona was glad that it was possible to have that, even in a society where everyone cultivated. They weren’t all expected to reach Unity, or even Essence Collection… just to be the best they could be.

It would be nice to have another Unity cultivator in the lower realms, just to lower the burden on Anton and to prove the results. On the other hand, there were always oddities. The strangest of which was most likely…

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Bear Hug was a genius. Oh yes. Nobody else could have possibly done what they were doing now, except for all the people that did.

Technically, the majority of energy emitters didn’t tend to focus on things like sunlight. Instead, they did things like learning to absorb fire and release it back at their enemies. But they did just exist. And Bear Hug had come across some of them after asking for help researching what they wanted to do. They were getting so good at speech. They could talk to multiple people per day with at least half of their sentences being understood.

Energy speech was still superior, obviously.

Bear Hug was, right now, sitting in a pool of sunlight in the lower realms. At the same time, they were bathing another random planet in sunlight, because they didn’t want to screw up the schedule of Second Gift. Sunlight was good, but getting a few hours in the middle of the night could really throw off some plants.

It was so simple. Energy in, energy out.

Now, ‘bathing a planet’ was maybe a bit of an exaggeration. Currently, Bear Hug was covering less than a square kilometer of land, floating up above to achieve optimum transmission efficiency. According to calculations, they just had to do that ten times ten time ten times ten in one direction. Then the same in another direction. Altogether that was… four tens twice? So like eighty. There weren’t currently eighty Bear Hugs, but if they could be more efficient they could probably cover more area, right?

Bear Hug was a genius. But it was quite possible that they were very poor at math. But it couldn’t be helped, because pretty much no one else in Klar used math. Thus, by default, making them nearly the best mathematician in the system.

Unless someone asked Briar. Briar used math, because otherwise Briar would get in trouble for consuming too much. Calculating exactly how much they could consume was important, and that meant knowing growth rates and areas very well.

Briar would have told Bear Hug that they could cover approximately 0% of Second Gift’s surface- to many significant digits. But nobody was going to listen to Briar anyway.