Ascension Star is a planet with a circumference of nearly 300,000 km. For reference, the Earth sits at a comfortable little 40,000 km, and Saturn is about 380,000 km. To help you realise just how big that is, the surface area of earth is about 510 million km2. The surface area of Ascension blows it out of the water at a whopping 28.6 billion km2.

Now for a new comparison, take New Zealand. It’s got a surface area of 260,000 km2. If the surface of the earth was covered in New Zealand’s, it could fit approximately 1900 of them. This is an apt comparison because the continent James is presently inhabiting, is the New Zealand of its world.

Curiously, that only makes it slightly smaller than the continent of Asia at a humble 15 million km2. This continent is called Atsunari and is one of the weakest most pathetic continents on Ascension. It would be more accurate to call it an island in comparison to other land masses on the planet, but it sits on its own tectonic plate, so gets to be called a continent.

The primal spirit energy saturation of Atsunari is one of the lowest in the world. The only continent with less saturation is called ‘Dead Island’, which sounds pretty self-explanatory.

Amusingly, the next highest saturation is a continent called Lakiola, which is 8 times bigger. It’s situated on the opposite side of the planet and has almost 200 times the average saturation of Atsunari. For future reference, if the average saturation of the entire globe were 1, then Lakiola would be about 0.2, which would leave this bottom tier continent, Atsunari, at less than 0.001.

Surrounding Atsunari was thousands of ‘Islands’, which in comparison to any isles of Earth, would be considered huge. Sections of these islands joined together to form Island Nations, which comprised nearly 8 separate nations. Interestingly a good majority of these islands were inhabited by sea-based spirit beasts and animals. Making the inhabitants the most adaptable on the continent.

On the southern end of the mainland, was the largest ‘Island Nation’ in regards to land mass. This island was unique, in that it had no single faction in control but was instead overseen by a council of 5 separate sects, which all placed in the top 10 most influential factions of the continent.

Regardless of that, the Empire James resided in, which has been mentioned a few times, is the Yori Empire, and is ... you guessed it, the puniest Empire on the continent, being so small as to be able to cover the surface area of Atsunari 75 times.

Obviously, Atsunari doesn’t have 75 tiny little Empires making it up. It had about 20 different powers, some small and some big, but none as small as Atsunari. The only reason they haven’t been consumed by surrounding nations yet is because they were sandwiched right in the middle of the three biggest Nations on Atsunari.

This was both a blessing and curse for the Yori Empire. A blessing, in that none of the three countries wanted to allow any of the others to take that little piece of middle ground and have some advantage over the other two. It was also a curse because it meant the Yori Empire could never become strong enough to contend for land with the three Great Nations and would never be able to expand.

This left them all in a stalemate, and apart from Yori Empire, every border shared between them was constantly embroiled in skirmishes and an occasional all-out war.

It wasn’t even so much that the nations cared who took the Yori Empires land. It was more that it was used as a method for the wealthy families and merchants to trade with each other without worrying about the wars on the borders. Having the Yori empire, allowed the nations to exchange commodities and be at war simultaneously.

To the leaders of the Great Nations, it was just a fun chess game and apart from truly rare resources or other such things, they rarely enforced any of their political might onto the Yori Empire. This basically left them in an equalised status quo, and generally, no one wanted to push the scales and tip the balance.

Finally, we zoom in on Yori Empire. Yori was founded thousands of years ago, after they rapidly consumed adjacent lands, until finally, they united all the lands between the great nations, only to realise the great nations were already so big and powerful, any one of them could blow Yori to dust with less effort than a sneeze.

Within the Empire’s borders, were 7 Regions and the Capital City of Yansho. Yansho didn’t rule an area, but rather an entire empire and was the home of the Imperial Clan. It was a city that spanned nearly a thousand square kilometres.

Of the 7 regions, was the one James was in right now, the Kantsu province, which was, of course, one of the crappiest, taking up only 15,000 km2. Making it the second smallest. This section was run by the Kantsu Sect, as opposed to a Clan, as one would normally expect.

The provincial capital was actually centred around the Kantsu Mountain on which the Kantsu Sect resided. The city was inherently named ... Kantsu City.

Of the other major Cities in the region, there was only 2. One was Gau City, and the other was Felsine City. Gau City was as you’d expect ... the 2ndbiggest after Kantsu.

So, all in all, not only was James on the 2nd shittiest continent in the world, but he was also in the 2nd shittiest city, of the 2nd shittiest region, within one of the shittiest empires. If someone wanted to describe this situation, it would be with two words. Fucking Shit.

James and Skay had long since learnt a bit about these circumstances and were entirely aware that, if they ever wanted to become strong cultivator’s, they would eventually have to get the fuck out of this empire. Unfortunately, they were also vaguely aware of just how difficult that would be.

Before anything, to travel, you had to at least have some degree of power. In this empire, that level was the True Spirit Realm. If you reached Palace Realm, you would be only one realm below the elites of the empire, and you could most likely move to one of the surrounding nations without being mugged by someone’s children.

Interestingly, being the centre hub of trade for the three great nations made the Empire rather rich in resources, on the market anyway. The problem was that hardly any citizen of Yori could afford them. Apart from food and lesser spirit materials they didn’t have much to trade and so the higher end of the market was mostly run entirely for traders and cultivators from the 3 Nations.

This whole scenario was somewhat bizarre, because running through the middle of the empire was a magnificent mountain range, called the Jetsu Mountains, or if being referred to by locals, ‘Fucked’. This naming came about from the death toll that usually accompanied any trips into the mountain range. It was generally said that anyone who goes to the mountain range was fucked.

In the neighbouring 3 great nations and the entire empire itself, this mountain range had the highest level of primal spirit energy saturation. It was the second highest point of saturation on the whole continent, reaching almost 2 times the global average. That made it nearly 2,000 times more potent than the spirit energy in the rest of Atsunari.

It also meant that huge numbers of violent and powerful spirit beasts congregate on the mountains and not even the strongest of the three great nations dared to travel too far into the area, preferring to hunt and train around the outer areas, where the energy was thinner, and beasts were equally weaker.

This meant that the only people who could frequently handle hunting, gathering or training on the mountains, were the strongest people on the continent. This was also why the empire remained so weak even with such a precious natural resource inside their borders.

-Gau City-

Fatty had been through a rough few days this past week. After leaving Lost Village, he arrived in Gau City about the same time as James completed the pacts with the Gau Clan. For the first few days, he completely forgot about his goal in coming to the city and was travelling around everywhere looking for any sort of work he could find.

Fortunately, or perhaps, unfortunately, he once again got employed by the city stables. Fortunate, because he earnt more and had a place to sleep. Unfortunate, because he spent nearly two days shovelling the entire stables and replacing hay before he was paid. He was paid 20 coppers for two days work which was enough to afford him a stop in at a busy pub hosting an eating competition.

The rules were simple. You pay 20 coppers and with a team of 4 people had to eat the entire leg of a cow. If you could accomplish this goal, you eat for free and win half the pot paid by competitors. Now for those of us who aren’t aware that’s nearly 5 kg of beef each person.

It goes without saying that fatty entered alone. Actually, the owner of the pub was almost afraid to deny him after he saw the glowing hand. Most likely even without that, the way fatty looked at him and basically everyone around him as food made the announcer even more unlikely to refuse, due to fear of being consumed alive right here on the street.

Fatty was hungry. So hungry that, in his entire life, he’d never been more hungry. He actually tried to take a bite out of a horse in the stables and only failed because he wasn’t nimble enough to catch it. He came to realise just how much his appetite had grown since coming here.

It was okay in the grain fields because he was always eating. But now, having not eaten anything for two days, he was ready to just lean over and take a munch out of some random pedestrian. Proper decorum be damned!

The announcer started to get the crowd fired up as about 10 groups of 4 and Fatty sat at a big table on the stage of the pub.

The moment the fire-roasted leg was placed in front of him, Fatty gorged himself. He didn’t stop until he started to feel a little bit full. Only at that point did he awaken from his frenzied face stuffing and come to know that not only had he devoured his 20kg of leg meat. He’d eaten his competitors as well, hell the fat bastard even ate the bones.

Of the 11 cows legs that had been brought out, fatty had eaten 9 of them. It was a mystery where exactly in his body it went because he didn’t look any more bloated than usual as if his stomach was a bottomless pit.

The whole pub was quiet, and not even the normally rowdier patrons made a sound. They all just stood and stared. After a short moment had passed the announcer reached out and through a sack towards Fatty with half the pot in it.

He said nothing as Fatty made a rapid escape from the tavern. In all the 4 or 5 years that the bar had hosted this competition, no one had ever managed to finish the leg. Even between four people, there had never been a winner. How could he possibly imagine that some mysterious cultivator would appear and clean the table of 9 of them all by himself? Just what sort of sick cultivation did he practice?

After that whole scene, a rumour began to spread around the city of the ‘Red Baron’. Aptly named because everyone imagines barons as gluttonous fatties and because of his red glowing hand. The rumours eventually became a folklore parents told their kids at night to make sure they behaved.

“The Red Baron will sneak into naughty children’s rooms in the dead of night and gobble you up without a sound.” Or some other equally embellished fairy tale.

After that whole incident, Fatty found his appetite equalling out a little, enough at least to not make a scene every time he went out for food. He continued working in the stable for the next few days and asking anybody he could about cultivators and cultivation.

A couple days after the Red Baron incident Fatty started hearing rumours about a new guild that just opened in the city. Rumour had it that this guild was selling a method to start cultivating and to view your spirit realm. Most importantly, it was cheap enough that a good majority of the town could afford it if they worked hard enough.

Fatty, being the conspiracy theorist he is, immediately began to imagine strange things. He was sure of the truth hidden behind this rumour, especially when he heard the guild was called the Dark Brotherhood.

‘If that’s not a flag for something dubious going on, what is?’ With that thought in mind, Fatty cleaned himself up a little and made his way to the Dark Brotherhood to get to the bottom of whatever this conspiracy was. ‘Because it’s obviously some sort of conspiracy to entrap the common folk of the town!’

-Dark Brotherhood Guildhall-

It was another busy day in the brotherhood Guildhall. Luckily, Jessy, had the staff managing most things, and Harvy was usually around to prevent any trouble by just taking off his bandages now and then and releasing a death aura. Although this created some negative stigma for the guild, everyone was far more concerned with missing a chance to cultivate.

Funnily enough, even Xanzu and Jeng started sending out some disguised Sword Hall lackeys, trying to spread rumours about the meditation techniques stealing your soul. The only problem was that 8000 people had already marched through the doors of the guild and seemed okay, so these rumours generally died before they got a chance to spread.

The whole city was going through a cultivator craze. After yesterday’s huge intake, Jessy had to send someone out to get more Tree of the Elements branches so they could process more people at once. Today, they essentially filled half the arena, blasted them with hypno and then waited a half hour for them to meditate and build up some energy to test their affinity. Once that was done, they could leave.

The guild hall was processing nearly 2000 people an hour. By lunch time they’d already pushed through more citizens than they had the day before.

In the foyer, Jessy was somewhat enjoying herself managing the receptionists and taking people’s money. As they processed townspeople, loud arguing started at the doorway of the guild.

The discord was from a group of very ne’er-do-well looking individuals with black cloaks covering their bodies and hoods up covering their faces. The gentlemen they seemed to be having a problem with was a great big fat man in a dirty poncho.

So fat was the man, that Jessy was sure he’d crush her to death if he were on top. Then she decided it was strange that was her first thought upon seeing the man and chose to immediately forget it’d ever occurred to her.

Everyone in the foyer split like the red sea as Jessy approached the trouble makers. It wouldn’t be a lie to say rumours of the Lady of Lust had already spread across the city almost as fast as the brotherhood selling cultivation for one silver.

Everyone could recognise the iconic freckles peppered over her face, and the equally iconic figure tightly fit into the red cheongsam she had chosen to wear today. Not just that, though, whenever Jessy released her lust spirit energy an odd smell would permeate the surroundings and bring out the desires in everyone around her.

The fact that she even exhibited some materialisation of spirit energy at the barrier realm showed just how powerful her lust really was. The only thing stronger than that feeling of desire she had, was her sheer fortitude and willpower to prevent herself from being ensnared by it and spending the rest of her life on her knees or back trying to fulfil it.

As that sickly sweet and enchanting aroma filled their noses, the ne’er-do-wells that had been causing a raucous finally stopped creating anything. Their entire face went white like they’d just seen a ghost and their bodies stiffened like rigor-mortis had just set in. One of them, presumably the leader of this little gang turned to see the slightly smiling Jessy slowly approaching them.

“M-m-mistress Lust, p-please forgive this uncouth peasant from disturbing your Guildhall again.” Cried the leader then as quickly as he spoke he dropped to his knees and smashed his head into the ground in kowtow to the mistress of the brotherhood.

Some might think this reaction to be a little bit extreme but this man knew better than anyone, after all, just yesterday he’d had a run-in with the Lady of Lust and spent the rest of the time since then in agony. So powerful was the reaction he had from Jessy’s spirit energy, he actually came until he bled from his cock.

It wasn’t until he managed to fall into a deep sleep that he escaped the pain of an endless orgasm. He felt lucky for two reasons when he awoke this morning. Firstly, because he actually managed to wake up at all. Secondly, because he still had feeling in the most important part of his anatomy.

Jessy looked the man over for a moment then it suddenly clicked that she’d seen this fellow causing trouble yesterday. “Oh? I recognise you. They had to drag your body out of our Guildhall yesterday. How disappointing, to not learn your lesson the first time. This time, you might actually die if I touch you again, so I suggest you show yourself out without my assistance.”

The leader of the little group simple grovelled further as his friends too dropped to their knees and tried to force their foreheads through the floor tiles, in an attempt to kowtow even lower. “M-mistress. Please forgive this wastrel. I only found a suspicious character travelling around the crowds and asking strange questions about your Guild. He was trying to spread malicious rumours about you kidnapping common folk and telling everyone to be careful and keep some distance from your Guild.”

After saying this little bit, another of the group’s men spoke up. Clearly, this one had a silver tongue and was quite smooth even when talking to someone whom he believed could instantly kill him.

“Most illustrious and beautiful Lady, please forgive us lesser beings. Rumours of your grandeur and stunning visage have already travelled through the entire Empire. I can see now, that they are but trifling pleasantries in the face of your true magnificent semblance, which could no doubt aspire boys to be men and men to be heroes. I beg you, Lady Lust, to grant as mere peasants clemency.”

Jessy was rather taken aback by these honeyed words and shortly after a beautiful blush lit up her face and caused everyone in the surroundings to groan and their knees to weaken.

Deciding she would reward such pleasant words later, she turned to the fat man only to freeze in place. Staring back at her was the now chubbier than ever Fatty who seemed to be stunned into motionless.

Oddly he wasn’t particularly affected by Jessy’s aroma but more concerned that he was seeing some sort of shape shifter using Jessy’s image.

The moment he saw her passing through the crowd, he was certain that this was some trick of the alien overlords of this prison planet ... or something.

The situation rapidly changed when a loud, obnoxious laughter sounded out from the elevator. “Hahaha! Holy Shit! Alan, you glorious fat bastard! Look at you, you look like you’re a snack away from a heart attack.”

Moments later a blue blur flashed through the crowd, and a man appeared next to Fatty wearing a light blue robe with the Guild Seal embroidered on the chest.

When he arrived, he slapped a hand onto Fatty’s shoulder and gave him an appreciating look. Fatty felt his guts clenching into a knot the moment he realised who was standing in front of him. ‘No! No, it can’t be him!’

Fatty felt a cold chill up his spine and was just about to start backing away when the hand on his shoulder snaked around to the other side of Fatty’s shoulders pulling him forward like they were the best of friends.

James had a rather sinister smile on his face as he walked forward with an arm slung over Fatty. Fatty wasn’t sure if he should just immediately turn and run or continue on to find out what exactly was going on.

Once the doors to the elevator closed and James had abducted Fatty from the hall, it was already too late for him to decide and he descended into the depths with a smiling James. Jessy finally woke up and began to get the ball rolling again. After organising the staff and calling Harvy to let him handle everything top side, she got in the elevator and went down to the level 2 lab.

-The Lab-

Jessy arrived from the elevator just in time to hear James explaining some things about how they got here. After that, he coaxed Fatty just a tiny bit and Fatty exploded into a long, detailed story of everything he’d been through and all his theories about this world. After nearly an hour of this, the elevator gave a ‘ding’ and out stepped Hao and Anvil.

Characteristically Skay and James would never reveal how to get to the lab with the elevator, but Harvy was informed to allow certain people down and was kind enough to send them down. Originally, they’d planned to keep the underground a secret but after some thought decided it would be acceptable to allow a select few into the labs. For the moment at least, they trusted Anvil and Hao. Song also was trusted enough to visit. James was insistent, however, that no Sword Hall member would ever step through those elevator doors.

Seeing someone new in the lab telling some enthralling tale, the pair stopped just outside the elevator until the almost asleep James noticed them and beckoned them over completely ignoring the progress of Fatty’s story. He’d basically not been listening anyway.

“Anvil, we’ve got something exciting to show you. Oh, and I guess let me also introduce another stepper from our world who must have come through after us. Anvil, Hao this is Fatty Alan. Fatty, meet the second elder of the hall of forging and the Clan Head.”

Then not even giving them the chance to acquaint with each other or process that another odd stepper had appeared, James grabbed Skay and Anvil then dragged them over to the workbench.

After a few minutes, they’d set up their little energy measurer. Then pointed Anvil to the graph. “See this line here. It’s flat now sitting at 28 times average. I’m sure you’ve noticed already, but the spirit energy here is unnaturally thick, right? Come take a look at this.”

Pulling Anvil again he led him over to a tarp laid out on the floor covering a 5m by 5m area. He then bent down and pulled the tarp back to reveal the glowing array pattern they’d painted there last night. Then with a gleam in his eye and a smile on his face, he turned to Anvil. “Well, how about it?”

Anvil was turning red and shaking like he had the fever. After a bit, a low chuckle escaped his lips which rapidly devolved into mad laughter. He was starting to sound like Skay and James when he laughed now.

“Heh heha hehhaha haHaHAHAHA! You fucking genius madmen! This is unbelievable!” His eyes shone like a torch was lit behind them, and he spun to stare at the graph. “28? You mean ... this room contains spirit energy 28 times the average? My god, do realise what you’ve unlocked here?”

James and Skay shared a bright look then Skay flicked a button, and another line appeared on the graph. It now showed a chart over the last 12 hours and was labelled ‘arena’ and was still steadily rising ever so slowly.

When Anvil saw this, his mind boggled. “57 times standard? Does that mean that ... upstairs you’ve made an even bigger one than this?”

Skay gave a nod and started to explain. “Not just larger, it’s made with an almost pure catalyst. Even just standing out in the plaza up there, the standard is sitting at about 9 or 10 on our present scale. On the ground floor of the Guildhall, it’s around 25. The entire arena level is at 57 times, and still slowly rising.”

Hao by now had also caught up with their conversation and mostly understood what was going on. His mind shook, and he could hardly contain the trembling of his hands. “How? How does it work, how can we create this?”

James had already expected this. He knew they’d want to know how. With a grin, he leant back on the bench and crossed his arms. “Well, I can tell you right now that you’re going to be disappointed. We believe this is the result of my element spirit energy, the type of catalyst and the nature of array patterns.”

Skay then continued on after James. “We believe array patterns may respond rather well to lightning energy because they act like a similar system we had on Earth. That’s only a theory though. We still understand hardly anything regarding how they fucking work and we still need to do some experiments and test reactions from different affinities.”

When he finished, he fished a jar of LS3 out of a box. He then looked around for a test subject. James had a pretty good idea what he was thinking, and his head swivelled to stare directly at Fatty. The grin of a wolf eyeing a sheep spread on his face and he marched over and pulled Fatty back next to the array.

The moment Fatty stepped near the array his red glowing hand began to shine brightly with a strange bluish light. Fatty himself didn’t even know what was going on so you can imagine how everyone else reacted. James shot back away like a ghost, grabbing Skay in passing and Jessy dived behind a workbench. Hao and Anvil, seeing the trio’s reactions, immediately followed suit and started diving behind cover.

After nearly a full minute the light suddenly dimmed until everything was normal again. The startled group slowly poked their heads up only to see Fatty sat on the ground rubbing his belly like he’d just gorged himself full.

When they saw this, James’ and Skay’s head made a united swish as they looked at the graph on the computer that was rapidly dropping. The line for the arena had dropped nearly 10 points. The line for the lab had fallen all the way back to only 4 times standard.

James was expecting to use Fatty to break the array on the floor, then see a massive explosion of all that energy it had built up. Instead, he witnessed Fatty ... eating it? Yeap, definitely eating. He even looked like a fat man who’d just ate his fill.

James wasn’t sure how he should feel right now. Should he be angry that he didn’t get to observe the test he’d wanted to run, or should he be excited that he’d just found something new and interesting to play with?

His eyes stared at Fatty’s hand that had returned to its strange red glowing. Then he and Skay advanced at the same time as if possessed and of a single mind. Skay turned into a bright streak of light and James blurred and shot forward like lightning.

The now delightfully full feeling Fatty got a rude shock as a flash of light appeared and began to wrap his hands together with an odd wire. Then a moment later a hand fell onto his shoulder from behind, and Fatty turned to see the wolf ... err, James rather, with a bright smile like he was greeting his best friend.

When they made eye contact, he felt a sudden jolt and his entire body froze up and grew numb as it started jerking and spasming.

After another short moment, Fatty was thrown, unconscious, into one of the odd rooms in the lab and the duo returned to the array discussing something in a very secretive manner.

Anvil and Hao both wisely chose to say nothing and Jessy for a first time opted to ignore it all as if nothing had happened. She just turned on her heel and said she’d “go watch over the hall” as she strolled into the elevator and pushed a button pretending she never even saw Fatty appear on their doorstep.

James walked back over to the array pattern and placed a hand on it. “Well, looks like he ate everything. Even my lightning energy is gone. This is good though. It means we can just try and put a different spirit energy in now. Oh! Actually, let’s try something else. You remember that gel you made for the battery pack of the arc cannon. Technically that stuff is element neutral and just sucks up any element. Perhaps it would be an efficient catalyst for other elements instead of lightning.”

Skay started looking through boxes until he’d grabbed an old battery pack and popped the top of it. He poured the thick grey gel into a jar, and they proceeded to paint two small arrays for testing. One was painted with LS3 and the other with what Skay referred to as Power Gel and labelled as PG.

James powered up both arrays simultaneously, and they quickly found their LS3 was about three times as efficient as the Power Gel. He then used his other two elements revealing significantly worse results with LS3. The PG remained roughly the same, but the LS3 dropped to a quarter of its previous level, so half that of the power gel.

This proved a few things. Firstly, the array patterns efficiency or power was dependent on the synergy of the spirit energy and the catalyst being used. Anvil was now joining in and throwing around theories with the two of them about array patterns. He made a good point that arrays were made to serve specific purposes and often could only be created using specific energies.

Suddenly the trio of geeks were throwing theories every which way, and Hao was just feeling left behind. Once it got to this stage, he decided it was about time they discussed what they came to discuss.

“Ahem! Before we delve any more into arrays, we should talk about the Sword Hall.” At Hao’s reminder, Anvil gave a wry chuckle and began to explain what Hao was referring to.

“Ehehheh, yes erm ... apologies, it seems I grew a little too excited for a moment. Unfortunately, the Elders of the Sword Hall are encouraging us to remind you that in our defence pact, you agreed to train with the Clan until spirit realm.”

James cupped his chin for a short moment and then gave a bright smile. “Well we decided to train with your Clan, but we never set a time or place, just that we would train until the True Spirit realm. How about this. If they’re so keen, we will allow for some of your disciples and Elder Grace to come and train us in our arena. Let’s make it ... every third day, we will train together. Inform Grace, we can start tomorrow, and there will be about 6 members of the Brotherhood in attendance for our first lessons.”

Skay made a strange face when James said 6 but didn’t think much about it. Perhaps someone interesting had applied to join the guild, and James was already counting them as well.

Anvil and Hao passed a glance then gave a nod. The moment that business was over Anvil launched back into the research the trio had just started. Seeing them about to get absorbed in study again, Hao made a wry smile then made his farewells saying he’d make an effort to visit again shortly.

Once James had sent Hao up in the lift, the little group gathered around the test bench and began to discuss, test and research everything they could on arrays and patterns.

Array patterns were a fickle business and more often than not an array made by someone with little experience would result in failure or backlash. Even remembering all its small parts would be difficult for beginners. As they played with different patterns and filled in details to the computers, they began to discover just how it was they operated.

On Ascension, it was essential array law that all patterns are made up of three parts, array pattern masters would teach this simple rule to all their apprentices and would follow it up with “Each one is equally as important as the others, and no valid array can operate without them all. James and Skay were both of the opinions that it should be considered 4 steps of design and construction.

Traditionally the first part is the Foundation. Foundation patterns are created in a number of ways, but they all have one thing in common. They are the base print of an array and assist with everything to do with power. Foundation patterns that the trio of researchers had discovered from the Gau Clans collection only numbered 4 types so far. Collection, Attraction, Storage and Dissipation.

The second part was the Support Structure. Support patterns were somewhat more complex and slightly smaller than foundation designs. In the lab, they’d discovered that the support’s purpose was to control, limit and change the flow, quantity, type and quality of spirit energy. This kind of pattern was usually interconnected with the foundation pattern in complex and bizarre ways.

The third and usually final step was the Lore patterns, and its job and construction was vastly more complicated than foundation and support combined. The Lore patterns were more like a language of symbols, and they were usually drawn onto both the support and foundation models and were also used to connect certain parts of the other two patterns. These symbols set the values for the foundation and support patterns or connected them with certain limitations and expectations. These symbols numbered in the thousands and of them all, the trio could only define about 30 of them.

Normally that was it for the description of how an array was built but James and Skay both agreed that there should be a fourth stage. The Detail stage. This stage was the first and the final stage and involved the design, development, and tweaking of an array pattern. From there previous experiment, they’d learnt that the catalyst used also affects the efficiency of operation. So, that too was added as a part of the Detail phase.

Initially, the stepper duo had trouble wrapping their head around some of this until one of them came up with the analogy of a computer. They started referring to the foundation patterns as hardware, the support pattern as the operating system and the Lore pattern as the computer code.

The Hardware supply’s the power. The operating system controls the power and runs the code, and the code tells the other two exactly how much power to make or what power to control and what exactly it’s supposed to be doing with it.

James felt another analogy would be a PLC (programmable logic controller). The Foundation would be the power, the support would be the programmable CPU and the switches and timers, and the lore would be the logic circuit used to tell everything else how to work properly.

By the time they got to this stage, the lab was covered in hundreds of different patterns and even a few finished arrays. There was also a large black area in the centre of the lab where it looked like something had exploded. Having been madly researching the entire day, James didn’t realise the time until a series of visions of Exsue doing a ridiculous number of inappropriate things to James suddenly flooded his head.

The moment that happened James body did two things. The first was a natural response any hot-blooded male would have. He got a massive erection. The second was James’ natural response to sudden changes in the situation, his face went blank and emotionless.

Skay seeing this drastic change, began glancing at various test tubes littering the bench to make sure they were properly closed. Anvil didn’t even appear to notice, so absorbed was he by the computer program Skay was showing him, that was displaying thousands of patterns and trying to catalogue them based on what they’d discovered so far.

James scratched his head and gave a loud sigh, sounding somewhat forlorn. Then he marched over to Little Blue’s room. Flicking the switch to power down the lightning, he opened the door to go in but was stunned to find no rodent anywhere.

The next moment he felt a sharp pain in his ankle and spun to see the little blue furball biting into his leg. When they made eye contact, Little Blue started running around everywhere playfully trying to get James to chase him.

It wouldn’t be wrong to say that James had somewhat grown attached to their test subject. He’d had dogs and cats and a whole number of other odd pets, but of them all, little blue was the most unique. He gave another sigh and with a little remorse went to catch little blue one last time.

After a good hour of chasing around the lab, James quickly found he could no longer keep up. He already had trouble gaining any advantage over Little Blue before, but now that the bloody rodent had spent 10 days sleeping in and eating lightning, he’d grown even more powerful. It had taken nearly 2 hours and the Assistance of both Skay and Anvil before they’d caught the little bastard.

Now that the game was finished, Blue gave a contented sigh and climbed onto James’ shoulder for a nap. Seeing this, James just looked at him for a long moment. Then after another loud sigh, he turned to the now very curious pair that were wondering what was going on. “I’ve got to go and meet with someone. A ... err ... let’s say a potential guild member. It shouldn’t take long, I’ll be back soon.”