The Blight tasted sweet succulence as Artorian groaned loudly, and rubbed his pained forehead from all the word choices and difficult concepts wracking his mind. It didn’t pause to let the aged academic catch a mental reprieve. “This coupled with a ‘mostly okay Essence source’ classed as non-curator. I suppose you’d call that a non-dungeon. With a ‘mostly alright cultivation time allotment’ but nothing special. As in a day job between cultivating time, while you’re trying to have a social life.”
Artorian groaned again, long and with stuttered pauses. Cataphron betrayed an enjoyable shiver. It didn’t notice that each expelled groan matched gently glowing patches of moss directly above them each time it altered its illumination pattern.
“If all you have is the basic Essence string or single spiral chi technique. Well… you can reach Ascension from there, but the time requirement is going to double, if not triple at the minimum. A ‘Noble’ or ‘Royal’ technique is a misconception. It’s not special because it’s ‘Noble’. It’s higher grade because it capitalizes on cultivation functions the average technique doesn’t. Single strands? Bottom tier. Shaped strands? Mid-bottom tier. A spiral? Paltry, but you’re at the top of bottom-tier along with center webways.”
Its sorrowful tone increased in distaste. “I’m aware the fractal is popular this era. It’s a bottom to middle parlor trick. Mid-tier only if you reach ninety-four spirals. That’s literally in the book as the average. Perhaps Zibonacci spiraling all of them would make it reach the top of the middle tier?”
Another muffled yelp from its captive was soothing, so it slid in extra detail like the prick of a needle as it explained that complicated Z-word. “It means ‘perfect spirals’. Keep up, human!
“How about core-techniques worth our time, yes? Bottom of the high-tier is where variation and creativity starts to really show itself. The basic requirement of all these core-techniques capitalize on using all three dimensions, rather than limit itself to two axis’ worth of direction. They use available center-space far more efficiently, and that directly translates to Essence influx and refining speed. This is the level of complexity your ‘Noble’ techniques have managed to replicate. The bottom of a high-tier, or slightly above average. Nothing impressive.
“Adding proper interconnectivity and layering in the design bring them up to the middle of high-tier, and having that combination in a Zibonacci sequence brings it to the top of high-tier. Cramming more of a core-technique into a small space isn’t necessarily better. That’s still limited to the core-types that can undergo Z-sequencing. Abyss help you if you attempt the absurdity that is joint-cultivation with a Beast-Core. Helix patterns and function-specific core-tricks don’t need the Z.”
Artorian drank some water from a flask. “Bernoulli?”
“Bernoulli indeed! He…” All sound ceased, and Cataphron leered at the… was the Skyspear headmaster snacking on fruit and puffing from a hookah? How had it not noticed this? That was absurd! It caught some of the smoke and… dissolved where it touched. What. The Blight blinked and inspected the smoke. It felt awful, but was overall harmless. It… ah. Celestial Essence with an ingrained dispersal identity. Clever. It couldn’t eat that. This required retribution.
The Headmaster continued to communicate in smoke signals, counting small victories against the oblivious Blight as his camouflaged and Essence-hidden students lurked in the passage above. They were planning out their next moves using methods that eluded this beast. They were also listening in, and Cataphron was nothing if not chatty.
Now they were waiting for a signal, and what would happen next was still being planned. Artorian needed to buy time, needed to keep the attention on him. Under no circumstances could he allow the Blight to look up or intercept their messages. So, some Essence was purposefully wasted. If this failed, it didn’t matter if he lost it all.
“I’m not going to ask how you know that word. Yes, Bernoulli’s containment principle is a direct example of a core-technique that is crafted to perform a function rather than concentrate on Essence refining. Since you clearly have no issues with the High-Tier… this is what the ‘Worthy tier’ looks like. Only those who are worthy and mentally capable can reach these. This one is called the ‘Penrose triangle’ and it is classified as an impossible object. With Essence, in a place that both exists and does not, it is possible; but the mind must be twisted for a concept this reality-shattering to be maintained at all times.”
The Blight crafted what it meant using infernal shaping. The twisted triangle glowed a corrosive, corruptive violet. It wasn't an intense glow, but touching the object would cause deepest horror. A torus twisted into agonizing existence next to it, the shape an affront against nature. A Möbius strip bubbled violet as it bent into being as a third exemplified shape.
Artorian held his head. What in the Heavens was he looking at? That worked, but how? How does that make a core cultivation technique? Does it spin? Are there multiple shapes? Do they interlock?
“Auw. My head…” He closed his eyes out of actual pain, and a drop of blood ran down his nose, staining his salt-colored moustache. That pleased the Blight to no end. Words had made his enemy bleed.
“Oh, my dear academic…” oozed the charismatic, nearly sultry voice. “This is but the Worthy-tier. For the upper-echelons of the Ascended… imagine this next one. Inverted-”
Artorian blinked and came back to himself a long moment after the Blight stopped speaking. It was laughing at the blood that now freely flowed from his nose. “Ah yes… S-ranked core-techniques… they will break a mind.”
Granted, the Blight couldn’t use these either. Messing with dimensional layers was S-ranked territory. It had only gotten to the height of the B-ranks before crashing down into elemental-land. But the mention alone had caused his guest severe pain; that made it all worth it as the impossible shapes were dismissed. The Blight had to stop there and backtrack. It had but a scant few minds that could uphold an impossible object, and it was expending them quickly; which forced those minds into a state of rest.
The Caligene could afford this cost. The wellbeing of his companion was far more limited. This exposure to abundant information was beating Artorian to death without causing direct harm, successfully subverting the land-law! The old man was hurting himself with the inherent difficulties of grasping these topics. Cataphron was blameless!
Artorian wiped his nose with a part of his sleeve, and a light twinkled in his eye. The Blight was incredibly prideful about its superior knowledge base, and he verbally stabbed it right in the metaphorical kidney. “I think you missed a step; you mentioned the pearly stuff?”
A hiss cut back at him, “Pearlescence is theft! That curse is nothing but a demerit! It provides a mimicry of the layer between cultivator and ascended, but steals part of your progress without your knowledge. Worse, your entire journey can now break to brittle ruin. Most of the energy isn’t even returned, it is taken. It didn’t used to be taken. What is now a necessary step and lauded as the mighty ‘C-rank’ is nothing more than trickery by a particularly insidious dungeon Core. The effect will never go away now that it is in place, even if the originator is slain. At best, the siphoning effect could be redirected. That snively little cheat. Can you guess, just guess, what the affinity connections on that cryptic miscreant are?”
*Crunch*.
The grandfather chewed on a grilled sandwich while thinking it over, downing a chunk with some water. With a full mouth, Artorian tried to reply, not expecting to have been put on the spot with an actual question. The Blight had seemed content to just monologue eternity away. “Celestial and Infernal?”
“Plus water!” Cataphron corrected him, but the initial assumption had been on the nose. That mixture was nothing but problems, on top of that: it just shouldn’t exist. Except it did, and it could.
Artorian ran a hand down his spotless beard. His Aura cleaning up any lingering crumbs or bloodstains. “So it just siphons some progress, and improves the power of the core? Tha
t still sounds like an improvement. It’s not much of a curse unless one specifically considers the no-return issue. Not much of one if you never knew the freedom of swapping cultivation techniques in and out beforehand. It does nothing to your progress otherwise? Doesn’t it make the C-rank… special?”
Blight spat at him. “All cultivation progress is preparation for Ascension. Nothing matters until then. The Tower is the personification of ‘purpose’. It is sought above all else, until you realize purpose is self-chosen and not found within a poorly built Tower of another’s making.”
The mass turned ashen in coloration, but Artorian had heard what he needed to and more. So that hadn’t been what made it feel like his C-rank had stifled and essentially done nothing. It was still something else. Abyss! He’d gotten the listed improvements while he lay in the raider camp. His Core ‘improvement’. Faster Draw. Better refining. All marked and crossed off on the checklist. So why hadn’t his improvement felt like an improvement? He was loathe to ask directly, that was giving information to the enemy.
He’d dallied long enough. Packing his treats, hookah, and other sundries that had been pulled free to annoy the abyss out of this self-absorbed creature. Artorian got to his feet on the rock, and began rudimentary stretches. “By the way… do you sleep?”
Cataphron crossed his arms and squinted vacant eye-sockets at the man. “None of your concern.”
Artorian smiled from ear to ear. It was time to drop the ruse. “Oh? Good. I had a question. Have I told you about my children? I’m awfully proud of them.”
Cataphron already didn’t like where this was going. What was this ridiculous segue? “...No. You haven’t, and shouldn’t.”
The grandfather was beaming. “As example, one of my youngest! She has this nickname. I didn’t know what to make of it at first, but I love her, so I wasn’t going to raise a fuss. However, it has struck me that names have power. Shall I tell you what it was?”
He spoke the words with flair and pointed a single digit to the sky, spinning in place on one leg like a top. The old man’s stunt caused Cataphron to take a cautious step back. Falling silent, the Phantom Blight searched around the cave system. It tasted touchable air, and prodded the general local region. Just in case something was… odd.
Cataphron’s sockets burst with violet infernal flame, his chin tilting up to regard a piece of space it could not access. There was an oval dome of some sort. Abyss! It consumed the infernal Essence he was creating! His infernal presence was absorbed so slowly and gently that it hadn't noticed the drain while distracted.
With all the boisterous fever of a performer, Artorian channeled Essence into his voice and legs. His explosive, boosted words rang loud through the cavern. Reverberating off the walls as he announced the next performer; the star of the show.
“Introducing: Astrea, The Nightm~a~a~are!”
Chapter Nine
“Three. Two. One. Bounce.”
The Blight’s viewpoint centered upon its aggressor as the thrumming waves of Astrea’s Essence-laden voice reached the elemental. Expecting some vocal shenaniganry, infernal defenses slammed into place in preparation of something meant to induce a cave-in. It’s what it would have done: an indirect attack that didn’t violate a spoken oath. A list of such events had been meticulously prepared, and strut-supports to prevent exactly such an event came into being.
The truth of the attack was far more nefarious. Had the creature perchance had more than the span of a moment to grasp what his enemy had said, it might have grasped its crucial mistake. The words hadn’t been an attack at all: they were a distraction.
Astrea’s technique slammed into place. With a plethora of targets that had practically no defenses against unexpected mental assaults, she felt invited to attack. Her nightmare technique had never possessed such power, and had never been this effective. Where there was usually one mind, or perhaps a few napping in a dormitory or barracks that she could spread this effect, here minds were packed like sardines.
Her practiced nightmare ability spread like a wildfire in drought conditions. The technique drank volumes of infernal Essence to fuel itself, but for once it didn’t even need to take it from her. Free energy bloated within the Blight, so the supplied nightmare rampaged unabated.
To the Blight, the initial assault was akin to having its face grabbed without warning, only to have it sharply snapped upward. Even though it saw with sight beyond sight, the landscape orientation and associated gravity turned a full ninety degrees. It saw the old man flying sideways as it heard the sound. An awful, dirty wavelength. “You can fly?”
A gnashing claw made of lacerating mouths lashed at his captive, but the complete alteration in its frame of reference made the strike miss by a large margin. The old man caught the hand of a woman in white, who hoisted him the rest of the way. That insufferable academic spared him a smirk. “Nope, I just jump good!”
The new ‘down’ trembled as the fleeing group of academics booked it down the cavern hallway. The Caligene’s outcry turned into a tarry, howling roar. Its ability to respond with reason had been temporarily stripped as internal problems wrought havoc on the otherwise carefully controlled mental prison.
Looking inwards, the Blight found a riot. One did not need walls or doors to trap minds that had no will to escape. It was but a few who sought sanctuary that were kept at bay, denied their futile attempts to escape. Those shapes against its near physical outer layer? That was his method of letting minds wail against the inevitable before they broke and stilled like the rest.
Where typically there was a stretched void occupied by the downtrodden that would obey when called, now there was screaming it hadn’t induced! That was unacceptable! Only it was allowed to make the screams! How dare that infernal-dabbling whelp!
It was that very difference in its prison that caused the elemental such grief. When it controlled the stimuli, it also controlled how occupants could react. Nothing had ever penetrated it mentally; that was what he did to others! The soon-to-be-dead girl was thieving his tricks! The Blight had been thoroughly unprepared for such an event, because the act itself was unthinkable.
Ah, but wait. Had his nuisance guest referred to the whelp as ‘his daughter’? The elemental felt his frustration growing. His detainees were rioting, fighting back, refusing commands, and worst of all: dancing. The Blight couldn’t apply complicated efforts in the world around it when it couldn’t even properly control the prison of its own mind.
He’d regain control in time, but for now his near physical body uncontrollably thrashed around the caverns. The elemental raged as it fought the technique, cutting off the nightmare’s Essence supply once the effect was isolated. Just so it could actually make some progress against the percussive festival. That one-trick whelp was at least true to her name: dealing with this was a nightmare.
Dodging incorporeal infernal tentacles was a surprisingly taxing bit of parkour. The energetic arms ranged in type and size, from spindly string to kraken-sized slappers. While some bashed aimlessly into the cave walls as they thrashed, others came into being only to whip out from an unexpected angle.
They’d have been sliced thin enough to slip through a fishnet if Astrea hadn’t been calling out incoming attack vectors as if she were a seasoned sergeant. Artorian pondered that last thought. It was entirely possible she was used to commanding people, given where she’d been on the totem pole when he finally managed to whisk her away. As per usual, Artorian had chosen a terrible time to ponder.
“Duck! Throat level horizontal slash from the left!” All heads dipped moments before a violet blade, looking like a guillotine, whiplashed from the left wall and slammed into the right, only to get stuck and dissolve the space around its impact point while the group ran on. They didn’t spare even a moment to look back.
Artorian felt tired. He hadn’t had time to restore his Essence reserves, and that last little jumping stunt had taken what little he had remaining. That high of a jump from a standstill w
as costly. Even the mapping pulse he’d sent through the caverns had been cheaper, and heavens had charging that jump been slow.
He’d forgotten how excruciatingly awful it was to move Essence through his body rather than through his Presence. The downside of hookah-assisted cultivation was mostly mitigated thanks to his functional Presence, but he’d needed to use his body both so that he could keep his plans secret… as well as actually perform the jump.
He wouldn’t have tried it at all had he not known Jiivra was ready to catch him, as well as pull him along if he stumbled. He flinched as Astrea spoke again. “Split and hug the walls, fat one coming through the middle!”
Artorian’s thoughts got pushed to the side as the floor they used opened into a ravine. Several dozen thinner ‘hairs’ bristled up from the opening like a fish breaching the water’s surface with its dorsal fin. They went right back to running the second Astrea pushed away from the wall, the brightness rising when Astrea called out that she needed more.
Of the group, Jiivra and another student, Ronan, provided lighting. Jiivra used her normal body-illumination method while Ronan held a concentrated cube of fire in each hand.
Artorian locked his vision onto the object. Cube? Yes, six sides. No, don’t question it, there’s running to do! The fiery cubes shone with light one would expect from a healthy fireplace, and the boy himself appeared a dexterous fellow. If anything, the old man was pleased as punch that the odd reactions to his daughter had stopped. Then again, that tended to happen when someone was saving your bacon. There was a life lesson in there somewhere.
In fact, it went on Artorian’s list of the three kinds of people never to disrespect. Those who handled your food, those who handled your gold, and those who handled you. His lips twitched into a smile as he recalled Tibbins and Yvessa.
Artorian's Archives Omnibus Page 83