Interlude XVII

Garum Yual

Garum Yual, former exiled prodigy of the Gamma Cluster Observatory felt his pod awakening him from his nearly year’s long slumber. The vastness of space was too far an expanse for most cultivators not of the Immortal realms to survive without entering deep space stasis chambers.

Garum Yual was no exception, while considered by many to be a peerless genius for his generation, he still found his body slowly decaying from the lack of abundant qi. That was why being sentenced to the Gamma Cluster Observatory was considered by many to be a death sentence. Even if one managed to find a suitable planet worth inhabiting, the travel to the planet would be enough to strip away layers of tempering. Still, such problems were only for those that used cheats to advance their cultivation. For peerless geniuses like Garam, such matter would only be a trivial matter to overcome and improve upon.

Still he opened his glowing orange eyes and peered out at a universe of stars that were quickly streaming past his tiny capsule that was limited to only one direction travel. Should his ancient instruments been off in their predictive course assessments, then he would fly off into the heavens. This however was just one risk a true cultivator would take when it came to advancing themselves before the boundless heavens.

The fact that the pre-warning systems awoke him at all was testament that he was still on track, that he would soon arrive at his destination. Otherwise, his systems were set to let him sleep indefinitely until he went through the end of space, and beyond.

As he opened his eyes, he began cycling through his qi reserves. Even his qi reserves had been depleted, but it was more than enough to subjugate an entire solar system, let alone a planet that was only now beginning to partake on the path of ascension.

Even if Titans still existed, they would stand no chance against him. For everyone knew that every Titan that showed even the basic of capabilities was plucked up and removed from the general populace, either to be converted into a bodyguard for a true master, or to be culled before they could rise too high and spread the secrets of cultivation too far.

As it was, no true cultivator could be spared to such a backwater planet such as the one he now headed towards. Especially not a planet that took so long to terraform that it was over a thousand years past its expected time bloom.

Even now, Garum was going early, thinking it better to pluck a flower too early than to be late and catch the remains of the flower after it had already been plucked and an elder taken the refined petals for himself.

Even with his covering his tracks and removing the records of the planet from the observatory records, he was only giving the planet time before it would be found by the truly exceptional cultivators of the universe.

He knew that such rare planets could only remain hidden for so long, the only thing Garum could hope to do is land with his cultivation mostly intact.

Then weather the storm until the planet was finally able to provide enough qi for one on his level.

Before his public humiliation, he had been on the fifth tier of cultivation. But that had mostly peeled away during his time at the observatory. Even the escape pod he had been given was lackluster as it let even more of his cultivation shed away. Even now he could feel that he was just at the mid fourth tier of cultivation, but even this was fraying away at the edges due to his lack of qi to infuse into his body.

Without qi, his body would die.

Garum had once read ancient stories about how their unevolved ancestors used to eat not qi infused meat, nor qi infused plants, but just raw plants and animals. Such thoughts even now seemed barbaric to him, how could one gain sustenance from such a diet? The answer was simple, one couldn’t. The minute one started eating in foods and drinking of waters that were not rich in qi they would die, plain and simple.

Their ancestors were no exception to this mandate of dying by refusing qi.

Still, generation after generation of their ancestors grew and perished before they found the mysterious substance that infused itself into everything. Qi was by itself a miracle, one that improved the life and quality of every living creature it managed to fuse with.

Qi was also one of the easiest resources to spread to non-terraformed planets. His ancestors found that just by releasing qi into the atmosphere of planets was enough to change any unhospitable planet to a planet capable of bearing life.

Planets that were naturally high in oxygen and nitrogen were of course easier to convert. This was why the current planet that Garum now found was such an oddity. By all accounts it was a perfect breeding ground for qi, so why was the planet taking so long to be converted?

Logically, Garum knew the reason why this planet still hadn’t been registered as being converted. A previous observatory user likely identified it as a potential target and already established a foothold of power on the planet.

Still, this would be no problem for Garum, he was an expert of Earth. Even if another tier of his cultivation was stripped away, he held no doubts that he would be able to take on any cultivator his current ranking or higher. He had of course been a tier five prodigy; he knew full and well what a true tier five prodigy was capable of. He also knew that if he was given time, he could easily climb his way back to achieving such a level of mastery.

In a heads-up display, an image of the slowly terraforming blue green planet came to life. Now that he was close, his passive sensors could gain more telemetry data about the planet and where it stood. While not as precise as the sensors at the observatory, they were still able to provide positive feedback.

The most important readouts were that the air was breathable, that the qi saturation sat at the mid to high seventies, and that the temperature was within tolerable extremes. It was slightly colder than he would like, but his exothermic tri-weave shell would protect him enough from any environmental hazards that this planet would be able to muster.

Looking at the planet he was ready.

Looking at his displays, he had a little over two solar days to prepare himself for entry. This was perfect, as it gave him time to get his mind ready for landing, and helped ensure he would be awake to react if anything unforeseen were to interfere with his landing.

Taking a deep calming breath, Garum felt strangely calm, as he knew he was finally going to be given a chance to achieve his destiny. He would finally be given a chance to prove to the universe that he was not one to be taken likely. He also made a vow that he would make those who put him in such a position pay for their insolence, this he swore to himself as his body and mind shrugged off the final stages of cryogenic sleep.

He was ready, or at least he soon would be ready.