The day before he finally left to go and join the sect, Edwin and Van went home to go and visit their parents.

It was still a risk, since the news of their new statuses hadn’t yet spread, but taking into account that it had been quite a while since they’d seen them, and the news that they had to share, was quite momentous, they decided it’d be okay, to spend just a few hours back home.

A warm, slightly tearful re-reunion, even though their separation was only on the order of a month or so. Perhaps two months.

Jarek was ecstatic, Olivia was stunned, Egon was stoically proud. The vis-Oddmund family received the news that one of their own would be joining the inner-circle of a Sect, quite positively. Taking it in stride, because they were already aware that their son was a remarkable man. The changes in their bodies standing as a testament to that fact.

The visit only lasted a single day, for the next day, was when the sects would be taking all its new recruits back to their bases towards to the center of the alliance’s territory. Even if the couple could travel the distance quite easily, there would be duties and training for Edwin, and Vanessa would have to figure out how to settle in amongst the cultivators, it wouldn’t do for them to be missing.

Before they went back, Jarek and Olivia took the couple aside, to ask them to do them, one single favor. Asking them to change their names. Though Jarek believed that the danger should be slight, he insisted that they should be careful. Yet even knowing that there was a danger, he still asked it of them anyway.

Thus, the Radiant Orrichalcum Courts would end up inducting one Edwin Oedheim, instead of a vis-Oddmund. With Edwin being allowed to bring in Vanessa Oedheim as part of his retinue.

Neither Edwin, nor Van knew what their parents’ goal in doing this was, they’d simply accepted because it was their parents who’d asked.

******

“Ngh!”

Within a ring within the inner complex of the Radiant Orrichalcum Gardens were two youths. One was standing, while the other lay curled like shrimp on the ground, foaming from the mouth.

“Ah, I guess that’s that...Any other takers?” said the youth that was standing. The victor of the match.

He looked towards the audience that watched them, made up of young Jotnar and Monstrum, most of them between the ages of fourteen and forty.

None spoke, or stepped forwards. Merely fidgeting in silence as they sat in the stands. Looking down at the broken youth, who lay unconscious on the stage.

“Hmm...I’m guess I’m done for the day...Alrighty then...In that case. Bye, I suppose. Till next time.” said the youth. Putting his hands together and bowing twice to both the audience and the seniors whose job it was to make sure such matches didn’t go too far. He then hopped off the stage and walking away from the arena.

It had been roughly four months since Edwin had joined the Radiant Orrichalcum Gardens, becoming a member of the inner-circle.

And thus far, he’d have to say he quite liked it.

Sect life wasn’t particularly difficult for him. It was mostly a mixture of meditation, cultivation, and fulfilling his sect duties.

Basically breaking down to a balance between continuously growing stronger to become a bigger fighting force for the sect, and doing his actual sect assigned tasks.

Two things that were pretty easy for someone like Edwin to cope with.

His power just naturally increasing on its own, even if he didn’t actively cultivate. The majority of his duties as an Inner-Sect Gardener falling right in line with what he used to do, when he’d been set to the task of taking care of the Nemesis race’s resource worlds. The empire’s planet sized bread baskets.

Of course it wasn’t all roses and gumdrops, there were a few down spots that came with the new position.

One of these down spots, was a strange tendency for his peers in the sect to routinely make aggressive overtures and challenges.

Edwin wasn’t sure why it started, or whether it had anything to do with the thick jawed fellow, whose rank at the top of the outer-sect placed him right below Edwin.

All he knew is that it went beyond the typical hazing of newbies, and rank sorting, that one usually witnessed in such fraternalistic, semi-militarized organizations.

At first Edwin had been quite troubled, spending his days dealing with those who’d try to interfere with his work, and fighting in the arena answering challenges.

Now after a few months things had quieted down. He had Van to thank for that. According to her, sect-life and cultivator life in general, were largely might makes right.

To live peacefully, one had to educate those around one, about one’s strength. Doing so with extreme prejudice.

Edwin took her advice finding it largely similar to the policies held by the intergalactic communities. While civility was valued within one’s own empire or government, competition over raw resources and use of stable hypergravity junctions, meant that one needed to be firm about one’s status in food chain, lest the other civilizations try and take advantage.

Now, months later, the challenges were thinning out and it had been weeks since someone had tried to meddle with Edwin’s garden.