If they could do it in a drunken stupor, a calculating group of Gnomish inventors from a golden age gone by certainly could have as well. Unlike the rest he’d seen of the mountain, The Academy retained its majesty. It was untouched by time, save for the additional greenery that had crawled its way inside, reclaiming for nature what belonged to nature.
There were no more exterior steps from this point. One had to reach the center point of the academy, and ascend using the stairs within. He hurried to do so, cutting down foliage as he went. He’d hoped this place would be bustling with activity. He’d hoped scribes, scholars, and ancients alike would be studying here, reading scripts and scroll, losing days of their time in stories and written wonders. Empty ground crunched under his feet as he traversed the abandoned halls.
The inner stairwell was a massive construction, round and twisting like the inside of a lighthouse. Ascending to the first academy level, his hands brushed over a familiar black door. The airtight seal was intact, even if the lock had fallen off the handle from how rusted it had become. He’d told them long ago not to use sub-par material to lock important places. At least make it of the same meteorite as the door itself.
“Please… at least this place. Please…” His palm came to rest against the black door, hand on the lever. He didn’t know who he was asking, or even why. It was either there, or it wasn’t. *Chunk*.
The door slid open like greased butter moving in a hot pan. Artorian covered his parting mouth, and his heart leapt even as he sank to his knees. It was there. It was all still there! The door he’d opened… the door had been sealed airtight!
It was the gateway that led to the land of truth. It was his favorite place in the entire school, save one. It was… The Library.
Ancient volumes laid preserved in their sealed boxes and sand-glued jars. Scrolls hung pressed between panes of glass that remained locked between wheeled stands, allowing them to be moved during exhibitions. Flags of Kingdoms long fallen hung from the walls, and writing desks with empty inkwells still lined the windows. Closing the door behind him as he wandered through a world of memories, Artorian ended up at a particularly heavily-marked writing desk.
Someone had carved into the wood itself, a boisterous youth with no regard for the rules and no interest in learning. Ah, what a problem child he’d been. He brushed his thumb over the carving of his name. His first name. The original. The ‘M’ was carved deepest. What an experience that had been, before it all went awry. How different life would have been, had he spent it all here.
The reminiscing had to end. He tore himself away from the desk, though it physically pained him to leave it behind once again. This was not yet the time to get emotional. There was still work to do. He’d have all the time in the world to have a sit down… after. His eyes fell on an open book at the Headmaster’s private desk. It was a Headmaster’s duty to put up books and set a good example. He detoured, and checked the contents.
He frowned. No. Who would have been reading… “Scriptures of a secluded hermit, donated by the church. Corruption as an immutable energy, volume one.”
He flipped a page, and found his handwriting. Someone had turned his mess into a full volume, catalogued and ordered by relevance per chapter, in order of… ah. Appearance. So still out of order for what mattered content-wise. Still, this was unexpected.
He closed the fat tome. Someone had compiled this and read it recently. There was no dust or residue on the open pages. He checked the entry of where it was opened. “Ah, yes. Regarding the removal of the immutable.”
Artorian recalled writing this chapter. Nothing but bad news with the conclusion that it couldn’t be done unless you had external help, or possessed something special that let you remove it over time. This was before he’d tested shoving it into someone else. What an… unpleasant feeling that had been. It had felt so wrong.
He left the Library. It existed, and the knowledge survived. That was good enough. Ascending more stairs, Artorian ignored the next several sets of doors. He needed to be at the spear. The tip. He’d never been to the apex, as it had always been reserved for the Headmaster alone.
The flapping of robes battered by the wind reached his ears before he left the stairwell; just as his footsteps reached the ears of the current Headmaster. This was the hole in the world that his Aura had found, but… Artorian didn’t know what to say when he saw the wreck of a man. This thing was in a worse situation than he had been before his cultivation technique, his body made of practically nothing but corruption.
One glance at the unprotected man showed a complete lack of external Aura, yet a functional pearlescent Chi spiral. Solidified, but small and simple. Non-fractalized. You could reach the C-ranks without fractalizing? Artorian wasn’t one to speak about doing things in an odd way; he’d also gone the roundabout method.
“No need to kill me, old student.” Now that was an eardrum-damaging voice. Artorian was chipper and spry in comparison. “If you would sit with me and do me the honor of a wisdom-off, we c—”
*Twang*!
That was not the sound Artorian had expected to hear while trying to cut through a person with parallel wind-blades. Twang? He slowly took his sunglasses off in disbelief, just to make sure it wasn’t a trick of the light. The fallen half-corpse sighed and shakily stood back up after the momentum of the effect had toppled him.
“Or we can fight…” How had this shambling wreck bounced off an Aura attack without having any external Aura themselves? The ancient man was spindly, thin, didn’t look like he had eaten in a month, and… had an awfully thick amount of Essence packed into his body. The academic couldn’t even find an Essence pattern to discern since the wry mummy before him didn’t have an Aura he could pick apart.
A different kind of opposite was suddenly in Artorian’s face, and he was painfully sent flying into a boulder. His nose broke with a crunch as the Headmaster decked him with the weight of a mountain.
This mountain.
Starlight Aura did what it could after the grandfather painfully cracked his nose back into place. The Auric effect would heal the rest, given time. The punch didn’t impact him as hard as Ember could, but it was a stone’s throw in difference.
“Internal cultivator.” Artorian’s laconic speech pattern made itself known as the philosopher got up and brushed himself off. “All body, no Aura. I guess I know what that looks like now.”
The Headmaster made a sagely motion of understanding. “As do I. I’m looking in a mirror of opposition, in more meanings than one. So… shall we talk, or shall we dance? We can test how little your Auric strikes accomplish against the Imperius body technique of the Iron-Shelled Mastodont Kings. Or we can talk about the future of this tall rock that was once an academy, and your place as a servant in it.”
The Headmaster adopted a stoic fighting stance. “What do you choose, flunked student who now goes by Artorian?”
Chapter Thirty-Three
*Boom*!
The fallen door in the courtyard detonated, and shrapnel splinters scattered as a blurred form slammed through it from above. “Argh!”
Students busy stuffing their faces with food were blown from their benches as the displaced air displaced them as well. Seeds, nuts, and fruits went flying as the student body got pelted by searing wood chips. Mere hours after waking to a new day, the youngsters who thought all the fighting was over watched a tattered hand claw its way out of the stony crater.
Covered in charcoal and burnt soot, Artorian wrenched himself from the wreckage. Being hurled to the ground was bad for one’s health, being hurled into it was certainly no better. Pain lanced through his broken left shoulder, and a stabbing ache stressed his hip. He could at least force himself to fight through the pain as he extracted himself. It helped that his Aura was mending the harm done.
A few of the concerned bystanders got to their feet, shuffling hesitant steps to come and help. “Stay back!”
The panic and natural command in the old man’s voice m
ade the already unsure students freeze to the spot. The majority had backed off when a whistling sound pierced the air from above. It didn’t take more than an upwards glance for them to bolt like their lives depended on it. Where the grandfather’s fall had been ungraceful, the person in pursuit remained entirely unphased when landing at terminal velocity.
*Boom*!
The Skyspear Headmaster opened a similar crater-sized hole upon impact. He didn’t even do anything fancy like a three-point impact. The man just stabbed the ground straight as a stick. It made the academic wince, and complain. “Abyss it, gravity! You had one job!”
Unlike a battered Artorian, who was crawling out, the previously spindly man was as damaged as he was bothered. That is to say, not one bit. “I’ve seen you throw at least three of my students off this mountain. You thought it would be easy to do the same to me? I’m surprised you aren’t paste already. What was that wavering field around you just before impact? No matter.”
Blood and spittle were coughed to the rocky ground as Artorian tightly pulled his Aura in. He couldn’t afford to heal his opponent as well, even if the heavily muscled man had been smacking him around like a paddle-ball. Wait. Muscled?
Artorian frowned and had to make several snap decisions. He could either direct the majority of the healing effect from his Aura to his shoulder, or his hip. Without mobility only death awaited. Hip it was. The philosopher didn’t have the chance to address his concern about sudden muscles as something brittle shattered in the background. Oh! It was the ground! Why would the ground have-
*Wham!*
A furious fist caved in his face with enough force to send him tumbling away. His body violently rolled through the air, beard twisting. A follow-up chaser fist ‘nudged’ him on the other cheek, while the third combination strike back-handed his left lung out of commission. The finishing roundhouse kick redirecting the direction Artorian flew off in.
Launched upwards from the strike via high-powered punt, rock spewed from the side of the mountain as Artorian broke through the Outer Pagoda wall. He painfully skid and bounced into some red-robed students on the other side. From the unpleasant sounding *crack* that came with the trip, Artorian knew that his ribs had severely disliked combination strike number three. That, or casually breaking through a rock wall. It was very difficult to tell when one was so thoroughly being used as a mop.
It didn’t take more than a glance at the crumpled figure making the most unpleasant of restorative popping noises, for the students to understand that it was time to hide again. If the lightshow elder was getting his butt handed to him, they needed to not be here. They cleverly scrambled. No amount of wanting to help was going to make it a reality.
Another spew of blood splattered to the ground as the long-bearded warrior wobbled to his feet. Gritting a broken jaw, Artorian pulled his Presence skintight against his form rather than keep it expanded. Specifically, in the pattern of what an intact, healthy body should be. Difficult breathing eased when he flooded his combined Aura with celestial and refined Essence, popping the bones forcibly back into place before mending them… too slowly. He wasn’t going to have the time for this, and to say it kindly: the matchup didn’t seem to be in his favor.
A gladiatorial being made entirely of corded muscle broke through the same exterior wall via shoulder-check, and continued ascending up well past the courtyard. The Headmaster must have thought he’d punched the flunked student significantly higher. Because his momentum kept going to carry him further upwards.
It gave Artorian an extra handful of moments to come up with something while his body cracked and popped from forceful mending. It wasn’t pleasant, but it kept him on his feet. Bouts with Ember had done worse to his body than this, and he’d put himself back together plenty of times before. Not that it made the restoration technique any less agonizing.
The Headmaster’s miscalculation was enough for Artorian to get his head in the game. That momentary reprieve was worth the world. A golden ring pulsed to life around his eyes at the same time the muscled cultivator dropped back down, forming another spectacular crater. Different area, surprisingly identical crater. Artorian didn’t like what he saw.
Specifically because instead of the usual prediction lines, movement patterns, golden outlines, and possibilities of action, there lived a black stillness in the space the man currently stood. No patterns emanated; no designs unfurled. He couldn’t see the world move around the Headmaster. A bleak nothingness surrounded this cultivator. Just a black void where… other things should have been.
Artorian felt his back hit the wall before his face realized it had been punched. His already questionable vision went wonky, causing prediction sight to wink out from lack of focus. Who was this guy? He’d developed from half-corpse to six-foot tower of muscle in what had maybe been a minute, after no longer being in Artorian’s presence. His adversary snarled when he spoke. “You’re not the only one with multiple Essence channels. I don’t even know what it is you have, but something within me is screaming to rip it out of you!”
Artorian picked up the muscle-tower’s choice of words, and patted his mended hip. That, at least, felt better. His opponent was in the process of laughing at him, so Artorian put his mind to work on analysis. Abyss. That long-winded named technique the Headmaster had spouted off must be seriously impressive, because the creature before him clearly wasn’t done growing.
He radiated self-assurance, pausing in his stride to cross his arms and gleefully boast since the match so far had been amusingly one-sided. Perhaps payback for what the old academic had done to the infernal man’s students? “You seem lost, failed student. Never had your tricks completely negated? It appears you still don’t understand. Why don’t you try another?”
Confident as a prideful peacock, the now nine-foot-tall tower of muscle smiled and flexed his crossed arms. He was toying with his food, and Artorian knew it. Artorian also thought it was ludicrous, but he wouldn’t say that out loud. The hubris this monster in the form of man was hanging over him doubled as time to heal. The Skyspear Headmaster didn’t seem to be aware of that fact, and the academic fox decided to play that up. After all, warfare is based on deception.
Remaining hunched over, Artorian slumped to the wall, even though he didn't need to in the slightest. Coughing loudly for effect, he held his mending ribs while maintaining the appearance of a weakened and severely injured combatant. All of it was just to buy himself more time. “Might… does not make right! Those beasts were your students? You should be appalled as an educator at what they’ve done! A fallen cleric blood cultivating? A despair cultivator feeding from misery and fear? Despicable. This was an Academy, not a cheap fighting pit.”
The smug look on the nine-foot man faded. He wasn’t about to lose in battle nor discourse. “Might doesn’t need to make right. It only needs to provide power. This was an Academy, before all the old Masters abandoned us to enter into ‘secluded cultivation’. They left us to rot when the raiders came! They left us in the cold when the refugees came!”
He spat on the ground to vent his frustrations. “The raiders at least cleaned that up, so I took their gifts and made them better. So what if it just led to their slaughter? Strength is everything in the cultivation world, and all the writing, reading, and studying was a farce! It didn’t get us there. We were pigs, fattened and auctioned off for our brilliance. W…”
*Pop*!
In Artorian’s experience, getting someone riled up always made them talk, and he was guilty of the same. With his wounds mostly handled—at least keeping himself out of critical condition—his Presence expanded once more. The added space was a breath of fresh air, and that breath had given him a great idea based on what Ember had off-handedly mentioned about the moon.
Even cultivators needed to breathe. Forming a sphere around the towering man, Artorian refined and popped a cavitation bubble after building the pressure between two stacking layers. This was similar to what Ember had done the first time he�
��d ever seen her cook a bear. Soft tissue such as eardrums and nasal cavities should have felt that one, and it was possible his opponent’s lungs might outright collapse.
The hulking tower blinked at him, then looked around for a moment. “Were you expecting that to do something? Was that your move? Trying to affect my body? Here I thought you were a student—turns out you’re just a fool.”
Artorian weakly smiled. The Skyspear Headmaster spoke of being a fool, yet didn’t seem to be able to see through the ruse properly himself. Artorian quietly thought that the Tower, which he was using as a name for the moment since it was very inconvenient not to assign one, should have spent more time with his own studies. The next Essence technique in line went off. *Pff.* As if he’d prepared only one.
Air collapsed around the Tower, accompanied by a blazing heat wave as fiery cylinders spiraled through the space his opponent occupied. Beware of backdrafts! The technique broke like spun glass as the Headmaster backhanded the pillar of flame. The upset Master was singed, but unscathed. No! He was scathed!
That was burned skin! Progress. Artorian’s momentary glee died on the spot. Dark veins pulsed and bulged beneath the Tower’s hardened flesh as the seared skin flaked off. The man didn’t even bleed when an impromptu air blade infused with a sharp edge of water sliced across the weakened section… cutting only an inch deep.
“You absolutely have to be joking. Nothing?” The Tower laughed and clapped his hands together at the flunked student’s incredulity. The injury didn’t heal, so much as blackened ooze pulled the wound together, stitching it up from within using something moist and dark.
“I just realized I forgot to introduce myself. You likely don’t remember me. I am Cataphron the Invulnerable. Headmaster of the Skyspear battleground, steward of the fallen academy, body cultivator in the impervious techniques, and proud holder of three natural Essence channels. Flowing water, unyielding earth, and perfection infernal.”
Artorian's Archives Omnibus Page 64