Elder Cultivator

Chapter 987

Traveling in Alliance ships was much more pleasant than anything in the Trigold Cluster. It wasn’t a matter of actual luxury, but the ability to enjoy it. Velvet didn’t find herself able to relax in enemy territory, for obvious reasons. Even if they weren’t a unified force standing against the Scarlet Alliance, they controlled dangerous space that she had nobody she could trust in. Or perhaps now very few.

The point was it was much more pleasant to be around her longtime allies. That included Catarina, Timothy, Alva, and Fuzz- Spikes was busy with some other business. The increased speed both directly from faster movement and not needing to stop and board new ships every system or two also helped her comfort.

Their destination was Metenin- at least by local star charts. Velvet’s information had been less complete, and the Trigold Cluster didn’t necessarily use the same names.

Even as they were still approaching their destination, not having landed yet, Catarina nodded to herself. “I see.”

“Learn something already?” Velvet asked. The two of them sat in the cockpit, looking towards their destination.

“I don’t believe you mentioned this,” Catarina said, “But was the other planet quite close to its star?”

“Well, yeah,” Velvet said. “Is that weird?”

“This one is too,” Catarina pointed out.

Velvet shrugged. “Could be why they’re called the Nighstar sect. Because they’re near stars.”

“What about it?”

“You remember our issues with powering teleportation?” Catarina asked.

Velvet nodded, “Yeah, Everheart’s method was dumb and destructive.”

“Indeed. Well, we settled on solar power. Direct solar power,” Catarina emphasized.

“I don’t think it’s that crazy of a concept,” Velvet said. “Ruterans theorized ways to use the full energy of stars like a thousand years ago.”

“The problem is I’ve never heard of the Nighstar sect,” Catarina continued. “I was looking for information like this. If there were only locations off in the Trigold Cluster, I wouldn’t be that surprised. But for them to be here, with no prior hint of their presence? It’s concerning.”

“You should save your judgment until after you look at the place up close,” Velvet said.

-----

“My initial analysis of the formations says that the style is not Everheart’s,” Catarina explained.

“That’s good, right?” asked Timothy. “Not that it stops it from being troublesome.”

“Ah, I misspoke,” Catarina said, clearing her throat. “My initial analysis of the formations indicates that the style is very specifically not-Everheart’s.”

Alva frowned. “The second way sounds more suspicious for some reason.”

Catarina nodded. “It should. Because I think in most cases, people would not make a connection. The style is so unlike Everheart that it is quite like him, you see?”

“Ah, I get it,” Timothy said. “It’s like a rejection of his style. Maybe someone fighting counter to him… or him hiding his style. But doesn’t his technique have a lot of overlap with… everyone?” Timothy asked. “Wouldn’t it be more suspicious to not seem like him, specifically?”

“Only if you notice,” Catarina said. At the moment, they were on the surface of a blazing planet, inspecting just the outside of a building. Though from what they could tell, it was likely an entrance much like the previous one Velvet had encountered, though somewhat smaller. “It might be personal bias.”

“It’s hard to not have it,” Alva said. “So what about the other question? I can’t really tell… but how old does this look to all of you?”

Timothy walked around, looking at the surface of the wall in front of him intently. “It looks old and well preserved to me.”

Velvet agreed, “Same with me. But… I think I know what you’re getting at, Alva. If I look closely enough… it should be better preserved?”

“Couldn’t the formations be breaking down?” Timothy asked.

“They’re in excellent condition,” Catarina declared.

“Also,” Alva continued, “There’s currently no damage occurring.”

“That suspicious,” Timothy said.

“We can safely assume everything will be,” Velvet said. “Hopefully not in a supernatural manner, but…” she shrugged.

Fuzz was sniffing around the area along with the rest of them. Then he growled. “Nobody has been here. Or they erased their scent.”

“It could have broken down over time. Wouldn’t the heat,” Timothy gestured to the sun and the surrounding planet that had a dim orange glow, “Pretty much negate that? Especially with time?”

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Fuzz sniffed again. He barked a reply, “Yes. But this place smells less like the planet. The ground smells less like itself.”

“We’ll add that to the list,” Velvet said. “Obviously, someone wanted to hide their true involvement with this. Either Everheart or some sort of copycat, I suppose.”

“I don’t think we will find many answers on age out here,” Catarina said. “We will have to explore inside.”

-----

Instead of opening up to a grand hall, unadorned, they found themselves looking at an unexpected sight. The ceiling appeared as glass, showing a direct view of the sun. Yet it certainly hadn’t appeared to have a transparent roof from the outside.

Investigations revealed that it was a one-way transparent material that they approximated let through ninety percent of the sun’s light. From the outside, it only appeared slightly dim after making the observation. That wasn’t strange, because at their distance from the local star the intensity of light was just as great as most planet’s noon even when vastly diminished. Their eyes weren’t their main source of vision while outdoors, as they were generally overwhelmed by the brightness.

From the inside, the circular window focused the light directly downward to the floor, but it didn’t seem to either reflect off the floor or be absorbed. Instead, they only directly saw signs of internal lighting from the formation.

Cautious inspections by the group indicated that the intensity of light wasn’t any more dangerous than outside, it simply didn’t scatter around. And when it reached the floor…

“Aha!” Catarina said. “Should have figured. The floor is an illusion.” Fuzz pawed at it. “Well, not like that. It’s still real. But…” she scratched a marking in the floor. Then a few dozen more in rapid succession.

A proper glass floor appeared beneath them. Or rather, just the center of the room where the sun was directed. The rest was solid stone, though it didn’t appear to be local.

“I don’t get it,” Catarina said.

“Isn’t it gathering light for power?” Velvet asked. “It’s pretty intense.”

“This is nothing,” she said. “We’re what, at ten or a hundred times normal intensity? This area is less than a hundred square meters. Even at perfect conversion, that’s a small solar field. Enough to power a few houses with low intensity appliances. I suppose if it captured energy it could power the entrance to a secret realm?” Catarina shook her head. “But there would be many easier ways to do that.”

Fuzz continued sniffing around. “Scent’s erased here too,” he commented with a whine.

That didn’t really surprise anyone. They moved cautiously, giving Catarina plenty of time to judge the safety of any upcoming formations. From the single room, they moved directly down a set of spiral stairs at the far end of the room. They were moving parallel to the beam of light, but it was out of reach behind stone. Not that stone and enchantments would stop them if they truly wanted to, but breaking things wantonly when they were trying to understand wasn’t helpful.

“This is very different from the other location,” Velvet observed. “Except for the part where there are unnecessarily long paths with no side connections.”

After a few minutes they reached the bottom of the stairs, which opened into a room offset from the theoretical beam of light. Their senses were muted by the surrounding formations, so they couldn’t be quite certain it still remained- though having looked down from above once the glass floor was revealed, it had gone quite a long way down into the planet.

As they entered the room, a portal opened up in front of them.

“How much of a trap is it?” Alva asked. “It looks like it’s going somewhere safe…” she nodded, “My senses are returning an actual space.”

“Yes, I don’t think that’s a problem,” Catarina said. “It appears legitimate enough. The question is whether or not it will remain. I sense no way to activate it from the other side.” She moved around the edges of the room they were in, feeling in the walls, floor, and ceiling for formation markings. “Indeed, it will close some minutes after we go through.”

“This is really poor sect security,” Timothy said. “If it was only a trap, it would close immediately or manually at the behest of the defenders. This is just asking for explorers to be trapped inside.”

“Indeed,” Catarina said. “To be clear, this portal leads to a secret realm. A subspace. It’s not particularly difficult with the energy and know-how. But the setup is still unnatural.”

Alva shook her head. “Traps are better when they don’t look like traps. Is there a greater danger hidden behind this? Is this room going to kill us for our caution? Well, try to kill us I mean. I don’t think there’s enough power here to manage that.”

Fuzz sniffed the portal. “Smells like sunlight.”

“More than the rest of us?” Catarina asked. They were, after all, practitioners of the One Hundred Stars. Even if they focused on very different disciplines, they had that same core.

Fuzz nodded. “The sun is in there.” He looked up. “That one.”

“... That’s a lot of effort to get some natural sunlight,” Catarina said. “So we must assume there is another purpose. Or… that they’re simply extravagant.” She shook her head. “It will take me some time to refit the formations so that the portal doesn’t close. I’ll also have to modify the other side slightly for security. In the worst case, we can break out of the subspace forcefully, but it’s a bit risky near a star.”

Velvet frowned. That would be an issue. “We’re not that close, are we?”

“Its gravitational effects will still be noticeable,” Catarina said. “Something we have to account for or have an unacceptably high chance of ending up inside a star.”

“How much is that, exactly?” Timothy asked.

“The threshold for unacceptability is a single percent, for such a thing,” Catarina clarified. “Because unbound stars have far too much power for any of us to withstand without serious consequences. If any of us were on a similar path to Anton, we might have related experience but our chances of survival would be poor should that happen. And we can’t afford to have frequent risks of such magnitude if we expect to survive until the next cycle. Certainly not when they can be accounted for.”

He shrugged, “Yeah, I doubt I could effectively block an actual star, if we ended up inside somehow. Need any help?”

“I will inform you when I do,” Catarina said. “Thank you.”

At various points in the past, Catarina had found herself in difficult situations where she needed to make simultaneous formation markings. Not necessarily complex ones, but simply ones that required being in different places. And creating a link of her own energy between the points could be an issue. Thus, reminding her that more people existed occasionally was useful.

Timothy found it quite relaxing to watch his wife work. Most of the time, he didn’t understand what she was doing except in vague strokes. Her previous explanation was all he knew of her current efforts. The formations were simply beyond his understanding. Not that he was useless at formations, but most of the time he found the difference between himself and Catarina in that field was a similar magnitude as that between himself and a day one newbie. Intentionally obfuscated formations simply weren’t something he messed with.

It turned out there weren’t any traps set up to stop people like them from modifying things- at least those who knew how to do it carefully- and while the formation markings might not last ‘long term’ for Catarina that meant they might decay after decades instead of something more concerning like the next few hours.

It had been a while since he got to explore anywhere exciting. Timothy hoped he hadn’t gotten rusty from fighting the same few people repeatedly. Even in Augmentation, he had to respect unknown formations and those who could put them together.

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