Alys just shook her head. She knew nothing about it. Speaking of Logan, what had happened to him? Had the Patriarch killed the boy? She had fallen unconscious shortly after getting rid of the ghost octopus and didn't know what happened next.

Lana, however, had the answer.

"The Shalar Order." Her voice was a mere whisper.

Alys felt goosebumps. The Shalar Order?! What were they doing here? What was happening?

"Which is...?" asked the Patriarch with his usual indifference.

Alys opened her eyes. The light from her own floating orbs' spell hurt a little. She saw Lana was pale, biting her lower lip. The girl opened her mouth to speak, but Alys spoke first, her voice hoarse and her throat sore.

"Shalar is the God of Rule. He rules over..." She was having trouble speaking, but persevered. "...all, including the gods. From the little I know of ecclesiastic matters... Priests, regardless of who they follow, cannot talk about him. Lana... is probably under great duress now that she has identified the Order for us."

Alys's breath became labored at the end of her explanation, and her dry throat was on fire. The Patriarch didn't seem happy to hear that explanation.

"But what is the Shalar Order? Who is part of it? What does it do besides being the hunting dogs of the God of Rule?"

Alys tried to shake her head but failed because of the pain.

"I don't know, Patriarch," she said weakly. "Nobody knows. I mean... except the Priests, I guess. If they are forbidden... from talking about the Order, they should know something." The Patriarch frowned but said nothing. Alys changed the subject. "I am thirsty. And hungry."

To her surprise, the Patriarch looked at her with pity instead of giving her water.

"It's better not to consume anything for three days when you suffer a medium injury to the soul," he said. "During the recovery process, highly damaged souls are susceptible to external influences. Any food you consume now can also end up nourishing your soul, which can confuse it and affect its new structure in the wrong way."

"Food can... affect the soul?" asked Alys, surprised.

"Not under normal circumstances. But in some cases, damage to the soul can affect the part responsible for some 'instincts,' making it forget it shouldn't allow itself to be nourished by food. Since I cannot feel souls, we don't know if that would happen to you. So it is better to refrain from eating or drinking anything for now."

Alys thought about that for a moment, and fear hit her.

"What if my soul... doesn't heal properly?" she asked. "What if it loses its... food refusal instincts?"

Aaron shook his head slightly.

"Souls are unique," he replied. "There are fundamental parts to them that simply will always exist. I called it instinct, but it's more than that. A soul can forget some characteristics added to it through experience or the use of skills, such as elemental resistance. But even if it is shredded into sand bits, as long as there's enough time for it to recover, it will return with its fundamental instincts preserved. The danger exists only in secondary parts regenerating in the wrong way and causing... mutations, let's call it that.

"A good example of a secondary part is the size of your soul. If it grows too much, you may not have the energy to sustain it properly, causing you to always feel drowsy. Of course, I'm explaining it roughly, things are more complex than that. But the important thing is that size is not a fundamental part of your soul, so it can happen. In fact, some techniques take advantage of this mutant characteristic to change the soul in certain ways. But since we don't know exactly what was damaged in your soul, we cann't use a technique without risking making things worse."

"They recover even if shredded into sand bits?" Alys repeated, surprised. She didn't even know it was possible to damage a soul that much.

"Souls are sacred and regenerate themselves," said Lana.

Her voice was still low, but some color had returned to her, which meant she had recovered from revealing the involvement of the Shalar Order.

Aaron smiled at her. "Maybe," he said simply.

He didn't want to waste time on this discussion again, and it would be more difficult to shape Lana if he was always vocal against her convictions. No, he needed to be more subtle in the way he manipulated her.

"That's the reason you killed the Soul Machinist?" asked Alys.

He shook his head. "No, I killed him because the Mouth-Man was his dog. The owner took too long to pull the dog's collar when it tried to bite us to death, which is the same as allowing the dog to attack. When someone tries to take my life, I kill them."

"So it had nothing to do with the discussion about souls?"

"Of course not. Even though Lana considers taking souls from other people's bodies the vilest thing to do, I'm no hero to hunt down vile men for no personal reason. Not until the chaos they are causing reaches a certain threshold anyway. Speaking of hunting, your battle against Logan and the Vitamancers was pathetic, full of amateurish mistakes."

Alys blushed when she heard that, but she couldn't deny that two shadows had been enough to nearly kill her even though she attacked first.

"Part of the fault is mine," continued Aaron. "When I taught you two how to fight against energy specializations, I never explained how to fight against groups of enemies, let alone groups that may have more than one specialization. So you wasted time and energy to attack the Vitamancers. I'll fix this oversight now, as we travel."

He had stopped walking to talk to them, but now resumed it. Lana, ahead of Alys, was pulling the ligurus by the reins. Alys was on top of one of them.

"Let's start small. You need to memorize the eighty-one possible combinations when the enemy group has up to two energy specializations. I know what you are thinking, it should be seventy-two combinations, not eighty-one, since eighty-one only happens if there is a repetition of energy. But this is because you forget that two people with the same energy specialization can use skills in group battles that they would never use individually. The Vitamancers we just faced are proof of that because if alone, a Vitamancer cannot link their Vital Energy to anyone. Let's call these basic combinations the Eighty-One Primary Combinations..."

The Patriarch kept talking. While Alys listened, she couldn't help but wonder if she could have killed Logan if she had done some things differently.

A small part of her whispered that killing someone who had recently been her colleague wasn't right. The smartest part remembered the rules of the Ironblood Clan that she had to comply with, and obeying the Patriarch's will as if they were the Will of the Heavens was the most important rule of all.

Flashes of the memories of what she had done to one of the Vitamancers under his orders kept coming back to haunt her.

But they weren't as important as the power that listening to him and obeying his will could provide her with.

The night after the meeting with Logan, they finally left the caves. Outside, they found the Clans Arena exactly as they had left it. No one had even come to collect the tents.

Aaron took a deep breath, feeling the cool night air. Although he was used to spending long periods without breathing in the vacuum of space, there was something wonderful about breathing fresh air that you couldn't feel in any other way.

They had already eaten on the way and he just called it a day.

"Tomorrow," he said, "I will wake you both very early so that you can see me cultivate. Today, we sleep early."

Right after his cultivation session, Aaron smiled slightly as light rain fell on his face. Once again, the surrounding elements had harmonized because of the Rise to the Heavens' cultivation method. He himself had achieved a perfect balance between body, spirit, soul, mind, and heart. It was a wonderful feeling.

This time, no animal or beast had approached, not even rats or cockroaches. He guessed there was a hidden object in the Arena he letting out a frequency or a scent to scare non-humans away. It also explained how no animals had made the tents their lair yet.

Looking to the side, Aaron saw Alys sleeping. She had fallen asleep while he was training, probably because of her mind being unable to handle more stimuli while her soul was damaged. Lana, on the other hand, was looking with lost eyes in his direction, which made his smile widen.

Getting her to watch his cultivation was a subtle way to manipulate her. Her devotion to the Goddess of Light was rooted in moral beliefs and, he guessed, a sense of wonder when looking at a higher being. This affected her in many ways, the worst of which was the way she did not accept points of view contrary to her beliefs.

Aaron had interacted with people like her before. Teaching her that the Laws of Darkness were on par with the Laws of Light would be as effective as talking to a door. For her, the Goddess of Light was greater than all the others except perhaps the God of the Rule, and darkness needed to be destroyed.

While Aaron conceded there were good arguments for fighting evil and darkness in any situation, ignoring the profound duality between Light and Darkness was almost like ignoring the Absolute Laws of Yin-Yang. That would become a tremendous obstacle for Lana to grow in any energy specialization other than the Holy Energy of the Goddess of Light.

That was observable right now. Alys had entered a state of enlightenment the previous times she had seen Aaron train. But Lana's ordinary breathing proved that she hadn't, despite her lost look. The concepts of harmonization between the elements she had witnessed went against her convictions, and her mind tried to protect her psyche from the Laws of the universe. Growing up hurt and it was natural for her to instinctively protect herself from pain.

Aaron was in no hurry though. First of all, just witnessing concepts so much greater than a mere local goddess would be a powerful blow against the feeling of wonder toward the Goddess of Light. Moreover, some Concepts would gradually pierce Lana's defenses the more she observed him training. No matter how hard she resisted, the Rise to the Heavens' method was too wonderful. Even he didn't fully understand it, so how could a weak cultivator resist it? Her distant gaze showed that just watching the training had brought her deep thoughts.

His plan didn't end there. The more she watched him train, the more she would understand how far he could take her in the world of cultivation. Thus, the more her loyalties to the Goddess of Light would weaken. If she actually asked for his help, it would only be a matter of a very short time until she became his.

And if she asked anything about Holy Energy, he could be sincere in saying he couldn't help. Holy Energy was unique to each god in that world and didn't follow logical rules. He could give her a lot of power in eight different energies, she only had to abandon the only energy he couldn't help with.

"What was that?" Lana finally asked, confused, after she woke up from her thoughts.

"Harmony," he replied simply.

It was an accurate answer, but it also provoked Lana and her ideals. If the elements could harmonize so perfectly and magnificently, and Light and Darkness were elements...

She frowned, still thinking about everything. He smiled and resumed facing the sky and feeling the rain that was already ending. When it ended, he silently returned to the camp to prepare breakfast.

"Patriarch, this destruction..." said Lana when she recovered completely from her musings. "It looks like what we constantly found after waking up during our travels. Were you the one responsible?"

The storm had destroyed the tents. Many were burning because of the lightning that had hit them, and all were knocked down by strong winds and earthquakes.

Aaron nodded. "Alys helped me before. She kept you all asleep, raised a protective dome around you, and dried me when I finished. Speaking of which, can you do anything about it?" He gestured to his soaked body.

She came over and touched his shoulder. He felt the Holy Energy come out of her to clean him and his clothes completely, also drying everything.

"This is convenient. Have you always been able to do that?" he asked, remembering how he stunk after days without bathing in the caves.

"Yes, Patriarch. Like all my brothers and sisters in the faith, when I became a Priestess of the Goddess of Light, she blessed me with simple skills to make life more comfortable. The Goddess of Light exists to bring peace, love, and justice to the world, so all my skills can also be used in others. The Temple of Light is highly valued in the communities where it has branches. Sometimes, just for quick baths and free hangover cures." She laughed a little at that, which was probably some kind of internal joke.

Aaron nodded. It was not yet time to let her take care of his hygiene permanently, but knowing it would be so easy for her meant he should adapt his plans for it.

"Interesting. What other skills of this type do you have?"

"I can cleanse body and clothes, purify the spirit, heal body and spirit, fix clothes, help people sleep, calm them, cure hangovers, increase fertility, remove carnal desires..." she said, blushing in the last part.

"Convenient. But I don't understand one thing. Sometimes you chant a few words to use skills, other times, like to dry me just now, you don't need to recite anything. Why?"

Chanting anything was a waste of time, a way to alert the enemy of what to expect. Energetically speaking, it was also unnecessary. At least when dealing with any energy other than Holy, that is.

"The gods are rightfully prideful, for their deeds are to be praised and their names are to be glorified," she said, obviously quoting what she had been taught. "That cannot happen if their followers abuse their gifts in sneak attacks. All battle-related skills are to be chanted, to give the heretics a clear understanding of who they are going against. And particularly miraculous skills are to be chanted to give the faithful a clear understanding of the lengths the gods are willing to go to help them."

'So she needs to chant some skills due to the pantheon rules and to increase the popularity of the Goddess of Light whenever possible,' Aaron thought. The popularity part was a little pathetic, but he understood it. After all, these entities needed to attract followers to strengthen themselves and remain immortal.

They said little more over breakfast. Then they mounted and went on their journey. Aaron repeated his teachings on how to fight different combinations of energy specializations to make sure they stuck.

It was almost lunchtime when Aaron felt a group of carnifexes approaching from the forest, exactly what he wanted when he invaded their territory. But before he could order Lana to use them to practice battling against groups, all his senses screamed that he was in enormous and immediate danger.

Something was approaching from above, and it was fast.