I stood across from Toria and bowed, dropping into my stance. It felt strange to be in a desert I knew to be frigid and not feel the cold, but as the light danced across the black sand, I let that incongruity fall away. I knew from having watched Darin’s fight that I could not afford to let this fight go on too long – I could heal faster than most, but if I got hit within anything like the attack she had pushed through, I was out. And even if I did not get hit, such an attack would keep me from attacking, ensuring my loss.

“This match is to surrender or incapacitation. Any attempt at mortal strikes or permanent injury will be prevented.”

The resounding voice of Bo Ai’rong echoed across the mostly flat plane outside of the Blacksand Citadel and I took a deep, steadying breath, my will tensed and ready for the fight.

“Fight.”

Points of light ignited behind my opponent as I Focused; it had been my intent to hold back from the great exertions I had become used to on the dead world, but not wanting to get burned alive changed things. Obviously. I felt my reserves begin to drain as red lightning danced inside of me; I had not had chance to switch it back to normal, but for this fight I wanted every advantage I could get. And the drain from going all out was something I would deal with.

The world slowed around me, and further still as I pushed on my Exemplar, hard. I ran towards Toria with all the relative speed I could muster, and was glad of it as I saw her moving, limbs and body driven by bright, burning lights of crystalline flame. If I had been moving at the normal speeds of a standard Path stage cultivator, I imagined that she would be little more than an incandescent blur, but to me as I was, going all out? She was moving, and her speed was impressive, but it was not enough. Toria had only moved a few feet when I reached her, her body grinding through the air as she spun with the apparent force of her own acceleration.

I knew that my full power echo punch would probably kill a Path stage at my then current level of integration, at least if they didn’t have their own defensive or regenerative abilities. I slowed slightly to take an extra step, switching sides and drove my sparkling fist into her midsection, releasing my bloody lightning from the constraints of my channels. Concentrating, I sent the streams of crimson electricity coursing to and out of my fist, a nimbus of red sparking in all directions with an air-rending howl before lashing into the bronze breastplate an instant before my fist connected.

The world flashed scarlet, like seeing the Sun through my eyelids and the keening scream of fracturing air became a boom. I dropped back in my defensive stance I pulled my Focus back into my body, allowing it to speed me back up as shapes danced behind my eyes. I was relying on Instinctive Precognition to help me deal with any counter, but as the light cleared and I blinked away the strange geometry, there was only stillness and silence.

I could see Toria a distance away, lying in the barely flowing aurora, the ragged remnants of her armour glowing yellow-orange. A flicker of movement caught my eye and Sonja appeared at the apprentice’s side and I blinked, stepping off my Path and dropping my Focus.

The world rushed back into motion around me and I glanced inwards to my Praxis, feeling the thumping rhythm of my Core that told me it was working to re-fill what felt like twenty-five percent of my total energy.

Not quite knowing what the circumstances demanded of me, I walked back over to the group, my mind going over the short fight. It seemed that Toria was partially speed based; though I had not got to see exactly what she could do, she had definitely been moving much faster than was normal. I had not considered it until that point, but a hard counter to speed was... more speed. I wondered if the disparity was due to my ability to use more Experience at a time than was normal, due to my channels, or whether it was a simple mismatch of abilities. Provided she was not too furious, I wanted to talk to her about her abilities. With her speed, she would likely make a good sparring partner, when I was not pushing myself quite as hard.

Letting my mind churn in the background, I stepped up beside my friends, standing awkwardly and not wanting to say too much, given Darina and I had just smashed Chian Jilow’s apprentices flat, I avoided looking at the Apex on my walk back, as the Paladin did not seem like the sort of person to take the consecutive defeats well. While they had not been her direct defeats, she felt like somebody that would them as personal insults, and I had apparently exhausted my daily allotment of idiocy.

“With curious caution... you won quite handily, Hunter. You moved significantly faster than the last time we sparred. You moved significantly faster than I am capable of. And, if I am not mistaken, has your lightning undergone a change?”

I looked at my giant friend and thought about my last test; at full power, it was actually possible that I was faster than a peak Foundation, even if that level of speed was not something I could maintain.

“Uh, yeah. I got in a lot of practice while I was gone. My Exemplar is,” I glanced into my heart centre for a moment to confirm my estimate, “twenty-seven percent. I think it was at five when I was, uh, forcefully-invited off world.”

“With surprised prompting, that is very impressive progress. It took me many years to reach such a point in my own Path. Is this in some way related to the change in your lightning?”

“The world I ended up on was energy rich. It took almost no time to completely refill my Praxis, so I could practice way harder and longer than is normally possible. My lightning is... something else. It’s sort of related to my new arm, in a tangential way. I’ll explain... later.”

For some reason I did not want to go into too much details with so many unknown Apexes around. I knew intellectually that they would be able to sense what I said pretty much anywhere in the Citadel, and that I would likely need to tell them something whenever we all got around to discussing the Risen Throne, but I at least wanted to wait until Walker gave me the go-ahead.

“It is impressive to make so much progress. I’m still way ahead of you, almost Foundation now, but for an idiot you’re really quite impressive, Hunter.”

I looked at Darina as my mouth dropped open.

“Was that... was that a compliment, Darina? Are you okay? Did the fire drive you mad?”

“I take it back.”

“Nope, you can’t take it back now you said it. It’s in the world now. You think I’m impressive. Even your master sensed you say it.”

I jumped out of the way before she could punch me, grinning as her fresh scowl broke into a laugh of her own.

“At least you’re not as bad as Cad. Now he’s a real idiot.”

“He’s not that bad.”

“You did not spend more than a month with him.”

“Well, that’s true...”

“You both did very well; Chian is furious. You may expect demands for rematches in your futures.”

I turned to find Walker now stood close to us, and looked around him to see if the Paladin had heard. She was standing next to the now recovered – or at least standing – apprentices, her posture stiff.

“Do not worry, I am blocking other domains from sensing us. Even Apexes like privacy.”

“Well, thanks, Walker. I wasn’t actually expecting it to be so-” I glanced past him again, but Chian was still talking to Kestin and Toria. “-So... easy.”

“Yours was easy, mine was painful and easy.”

“Learned to turn your pain off, you have not, Darina?”

Darina’s master joined us, her voice stern, but only a little. On hearing her master’s words, I saw my friend drop another bow, but I also saw Sonja roll her eyes at her small apprentice.

“I can’t turn it off without turning off all sensation yet, Master.”

“Practice you will.”

“Yes, Master.”

We stood in silence for a moment, before I recalled that my question had not yet been answered, and something further occurred to me.

“Uh, so about my win there... Toria isn’t... below my stage, is she? I didn’t pick on a Core or... Focus level person, did I?”

“A cultivator is only given a name when they are far enough along their Path to solidify their image. Toria walks her own Path, and is not yet at the Foundation stage. Kestin as well, Darina.”

I let out a quick sigh, happy that I had not been picking on the weak.

“Speaking of names, we should consider your own, Hunter. Perhaps we should return to the Citadel proper, and discuss your new abilities?”

“Uh, sure. Good idea.”

Now that I knew Walker could block the Domain senses of the other Apexes, I felt better about speaking about the whole thing. I had been prepared to tell them the surface details of my trip to the other world, but had been planning on holding back the specifics until after the meeting, and most of the quasi-Ascended moved on.

A few minutes passed before everyone began to move inside again; as we went, most of those gathered congratulated Darina and I on our matches, though the Paladin was conspicuous in her absence. I looked around a couple of times to find her, but she was studiously ignoring us, though I caught Kestin and Toria glancing back at us more than once. I was expecting rage, like they had shown earlier, but instead I found what I could only take as grudging respect on their faces. I did not wave that time.

*

***

*

Seven of us filed into Walker’s suite – my friends and I, Walker, Sonja and Raaf - to find Aella lounging on a chair, one leg hooked over the arm and a bottle cradles on her arm. She looked up as we entered and offered wide grin.

“Ha! You’re back then? Did you come with the palace?

My teacher’s voice was slurred slightly, and she was trying to glare, but spoiled it by being unable to contain her wide smile.

“Hey, Teacher; it’s good to see you again! No, I didn’t come with the palace. I sort of got stuck on another world again... Walker came and got me.”

“You should stop doing that.”

“Yeah, you’re not the first to say that.”

“Ha! Tomorrow we will see how far you have come with your chain work. For now, it looks like you’re going to discuss something boring, so I’m going to bed.”

With that, Aella stood smoothly and walked through a door on the other side of the room. I grimaced and hoped she’d accept my missing arm excuse; she had not seemed to have noticed my abnormal looking appendage, but how often did a person really check to make sure other people’s hands were still there?

“I believe the first thing we should discuss, is your mission. I presume given the lack of raging phoenix that everything went well?”

I turned back from the door to find that my friends – and the Apexes – had already settled. I had not expected Raaf or Sonja to follow us, but if we were going to go over our mission, I guessed that it made sense.

“Uh, yeah, mostly.”

The four of us quickly went over our mission, on the ambushes by the Risen Throne and meeting V. We talked about meeting the Shadow Faced Guy, and losing my arm; I showed them my new one, they had noticed, so I promised to explain later. We talked about our meeting with the thundering apes and their assistance – and I again made it very clear they did not like strangers – and our first journey into the phoenix inferno, Flame Ever Dancing’s refusal of assistance and our decision to stick around.

I went over our encounter with the instant frog – and the basics of my Path – before moving onto our encounter with McCreepy and V, and meeting Cad. We explained the ‘fight’ between Flame Ever Dancing and McCrown, and the strange, draining black mist.

“After that, we tried to figure out how they’d homed in on the location, and it turned out the amulet Cad had served as a sort of beacon. We should probably let Everwood City know at some point, because they have the ones they took from me. And, I, uh, received confirmation from the person who sent me and a new mission. Have you guys ever heard of Anan Al’monhad? I’m supposed to stop him dying, or escaping from somewhere, but I have no idea who he is.”

There was a long silence as the Apexes stared at me, and I glanced at my friends to see their reaction, and they looked equally perplexed by the reaction. After about thirty seconds, Walker spoke, his voice low and grave.

“Do you recall the tale I told of the Apex of the Multiplicitous Self?”