After the completion of Antons conversations with Elder Atwood he t several others from Infinite Wisdom Forest. Their enthusiasm for teaching people to cultivate energy was not as great as his own, but he successfully convinced them to make so attempts with a small group of people. They were of course interested in the potential for the quantity and quality of natural energy to be improved, potentially removing the need to maintain so expensive formations around their sect.
Beyond the tuberous roots from Ambati, Anton had gathered a small collection of different sorts of crops that could be grown with only a small amount of natural energy, the sort that would gather and amplify it. There were even more he didnt have possession of, but knew about and was trying to get samples of. No matter how good one thing was, it couldnt simply be grown everywhere. Besides asking for a blight to overtake a countrys entire crops, the soil would be depleted if not left to rest or maintained with proper crop rotation.
Elder Howland of the Order helped fill Anton in on what things to watch out for in terms of exceptional plants. So produced more energy while they grew, while others absorbed it- but ultimately it was possible to end up with a net positive amount. And even those plants that fully contained energy within themselves were still useful to cultivators as food or dicines.
The reason the scale of growing such crops was limited was simply from a lack of manpower. The Order was generous with rewarding contribution points for those who worked the fields, but they were limited both by those who chose to perform the work and the absolute numbers involved. Even the largest sects numbered in the thousands, and that was quite little compared to even the countryside surrounding a single large city.
Even if the crops werent necessarily of the extraordinary variety, they could be tended to more efficiently by cultivators who had stronger bodies. Even if oxen were plowing the fields, there was much physical labor for a farr to imrse themself in.
Anton doubted that Infinite Wisdom Forest would care for his plan beyond increasing the availability of energy infused crops and spiritual herbs, but he hoped that was incentive enough for them to wish to make long term efforts.
-----
Silence was pervasive in the observatory. Yet despite that, it wasnt quite so awkward as it once had been. Hoyt sat patiently as he watched his grandfather slowly move and focus the great telescope. Co, co, take a look at this.
Hoyt stepped forward. Everything he was shown was interesting to look at. But this ti, it was just blackness. Is it focused wrong? he asked. I only see darkness.
Mhmm, Vandale nodded, Now feel it.
Though it was only a very faint thing, the telescope amplified more than just the visual acuity of the stars. They had a sort of feel to them, but it was so minor as to be overlooked when not specifically sensing. ... still nothing. Was this so sort of exercise to improve his abilities? Hoyt might not be so opposed to those, but hed prefer to know if he was supposed to be training.
Interesting, isnt it? Vandale smiled widely, Nothing at all. Or even less than nothing.
I dont understand, Hoyt admitted.
Vandale shrugged, Maybe Im wrong, but Im of the belief that sothing is there. Devouring.
Is it a danger? Hoyt asked.
Not to us. The only celestial object of note is our own sun and the nearby planets. Everything else is simply too far to concern ourselves with. But it is interesting to look at nonetheless.
Hoyt agreed. Its quite sothing to look at. Even the blackness was so pure and rarely seen that it was almost beautiful. But he much preferred shining stars still.
Hoyts eyes locked on his grandfather. It was unfortunate that the void reminded him of sothing. There was so force attached to Vandale, draining him. He still could use a majority of his power, but Hoyt had managed to learn that if he used too much the power could break free, killing him or perhaps doing sothing worse. He knew his grandfather would choose to die before letting it harm others, but that was the problem. Just because Hoyt didnt want him to pave his path of cultivation didnt an he didnt want him to live.
Listen, his grandfather broke the silence. I know you dont want to learn Falling Stars from . Thats fine. Its not that great of a technique anyway.
Its amazing, Hoyt interjected.
Vandale held up his arm, It might look it, but the first generation of a technique is never going to be its best. Even most of Everhearts crap has been improved since his ti. Anyway, the point was I can still teach you other things about cultivation and controlling a fiery power like a star. It wont even look like my other techniques.
Previously, Hoyt would have refused. That would have been for several reasons, including stubbornness. But now, he found his stubbornness greatly diminished and even pointless. He was still not going to try to be like his grandfather though. Ill gladly accept.
-----
When cultivators could not resolve sothing quickly, it tended to drag on. From the perspective of the cultivation clans and sects, a single year was not long. The attacks felt more like a rapid flurry, taking advantage of the disorganized nature of the various groups. And disorganized they were, since despite the agreents between sects nothing truly bound the region together.
In a way, however, the attacks had so benefits. Though many youths with promising talent perished, the continued attacks forced different groups to work together to investigate. Black Soul Valley itself was still empty, just ruins that had been combed through many tis in the past year. Yet clearly related cultivators still existed, so of them having fled from the battle but clearly they had enough mbers remaining that there had to have been more than one location.
Along with the suspicions on rival sects, with the information that the attacks made use of illusions so actually justified suspicions began to be ford. Those groups that were sensible were quite cooperative with trying to find the weakness of the illusory techniques used. Others remained stubborn, out of concern that they would reveal weaknesses of their own sects techniques in the process. That cast certain groups in more suspicion, but no moves against them had been made as of yet.
One very cooperative group was the Courageous Heart Clan. Their own clans techniques required their bloodline to perform properly, and there were features about them that easily put them above suspicion. There were many things that were possible with cultivation, but changing size in a permanent fashion was not one of them. With the Courageous Heart Clan being quite easy to verify as about half the height of a normal human and bodies from those who had been slain being around normal size, only the most extrely paranoid would conflate the two.
The problem was finding anyone with firsthand experience dealing with their illusions and surviving. At least, those who could describe how the techniques might work. There had indeed been juniors of illusion using groups who were killed, but they werent so common that theyd had one of the lucky few survivals.
That was the biggest factor. It seed that this group was well organized to the point of rarely failing, and nobody could point to an incident where their specific plans had been discovered in advance. And people still didnt know how to find them, despite the feel of their energy being known widely.
-----
The best thing about wandering from city to city was stopping at roadside food vendors. At least, Chikere was a firm believer in that truth. Dumplings, sandwiches, pies, soups, noodles all sorts of different things were available. The good ones you could sll from far away while walking down the road. In fact, most quality could be spotted from a distance. Fine buildings, fancy clothes, good swords all usually discernible just from a single glance at any range.
This particular place had several of those things. The building itself was just slats of wood almost randomly held together, but the slls coming from the back were divine. Only a few passers-by were stopped under the overhang when Chikere arrived, but it wasnt lunchti. Well, it was lunchti because she was about to eat, but not the normal ti for a al.
This place happened to serve fish without slling fishy. A trendous accomplishnt in Chikeres book. It did sll like frying oil, but that was sothing she considered good. She ordered a few filets when they got to her and wolfed them down. Delicious.
Her eyes road to other patrons of the establishnt. They settled on a well-muscled old man. But the person himself wasnt important. It was the sword at his side. Sothing was familiar about it. As she got close, she realized it looked like number ten. Excuse sir. May I ask where you got your sword?
He looked over at her, grunting. Eh. Blacksmith and enchanter in Sarton.
Chikere waited for more details, but he was no more forthcoming than that. She simply nodded her head in thanks and began to walk away.
It was like number ten. It wasnt the sword that the other one had been wielding when she got it, but it certainly was related. Forged by the sa hand. The only question she had was whether number ten was the best the smith could do or if there were better available. With at least three similar in quality to number ten, she would bet the smith was capable of more. It was just a question of affording it. But she could sell the old number ten if she had to, and of course there were all of the other swords that had dropped out of the top rankings that she sold a few at a ti.
It wouldnt do to flood the market, but that also ant she had a constant influx of swords. Other weapons, too. It wasnt like only sword cultivators ca after her head. Just mostly that type. They seed to think she was showing off with all the swords hanging at her waist, and cultivators tended to be the arrogant sort. So of them were smart enough to not actually try to kill her, though. She extended the sa courtesy to them, if not to their pride.
Sarton. It was as good of a target as any. It had been a while since she wandered through Ofrurg. She just hoped the border guards werent the annoying ones that kept bugging her about where all the swords marked for the Eternal Sword Hall ca from. There was really only one explanation, and they just wasted her ti with the sa questions over and over.
-----
Natural formations were a strange phenonon. A stick could represent a line or a more complex rune and fallen leaves could fill key positions, but for the most part larger trees and stones made up the majority of it. After all, if the wind blew and leaves fluttered away, it was hardly a formation but instead a random scattering of stuff.
Only in rare cases were natural formations really much of anything. When they were self-reinforcing, made out of durable materials, they could last for a long ti. Catarina knew that people first studied natural formations to understand the more formalized formations they had now. She could see why and she could also see why people didnt still do it. It was tedious to look at every little leaf in an area and hope that nothing changed to disturb a small change in the flow of energy before an assessnt was complete.
The trickiest thing was making sothing look natural while that wasnt the case. Elder Rana had indicated that most of the ti it had little value, except for luring soone into an ambush- but hiding formation flags was often easier. And if soone was so attuned to the energy fluctuations anyway, they could pick out either kind if they were looking.
Still, Catarinas first experience with formations had more involved the natural or semi-natural kind. It had been sothing of a miracle that shed been able to learn anything about formations in Carran. Her hotown hadnt been much of anything special, but a nearby library actually had a few manuals on cultivation. Obviously they had the Ninety-Nine Stars cultivation technique, but they had a few other things as well. That had gotten both her and Timothy started.
As for why shed studied natural formations, she simply didnt have special materials. Created formations using natural objects wasnt technically a natural formation, but rearranging local objects was a reasonable replacent for anything with proper materials when it was required.
Catarina now had the finances to make anything within a certain reasonable threshold, but she was still working on a formation making use of natural objects. It was strangely difficult to accomplish. Of course, Elder Rana reminded her that all of the anti-ascension energy formations were complex, and transferring them to a new dium was likewise going to be difficult.
Yet it wasnt any harder than so of Everhearts formations. They could get pretty complex and difficult to manage with the capacity to go outside of the bounds of the users intentions. They crossed the line into forbidden territory in several ways, and Catarina was always cautious with them.
The biggest difficulty with the formations that were supposed to weaken ascension energy was testing them. Her grandpa wasnt always around, and though they could use other formations to emulate the energy, it was both high in effort and expensive. There was a certain sort of feeling a formation master eventually got for how sothing would work, but there were still small details that could benefit from testing.
Catarina sighed. She hoped that she would have a long ti before she needed these particular techniques. Or preferably, they wouldnt ever be needed at all. But that was probably just a nice dream.
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