The Sergeant was feeling much better about her mission, after having spent a whole year without being compromised… twice. And being able to openly visit Anishka made everything easier. Such as the transition to another location. It would have been possible to sneak onto another ship going towards the poles, but that would have required waiting around in the proper location for a long time. And she would have had a difficult time finding Anishka’s location in such a situation, except for the particular circumstances they were in.

Specifically, the Northern Glacier Sect was located exactly where one would expect, and with as much population and traffic as could be expected. Which was to say, they had a sizable population of cultivators making up their sect and few other permanent residents.

Everything was cold. The area was cold. The people were cold. Their energy was cold.

The only thing that warmed the Sergeant up was nibbling on Anishka’s energy, unless she was training- which was kind of the whole point of her being in the area. If only Patka were around, she was doing a good job of learning the basics of cultivation, and thus was half fire. But sadly, she had not been able to come with them. The Northern Glacier Sect was willing to accept a visitor from Ceretos, but not some random peasant from their own planet.

Technically, they didn’t say peasant- but the Sergeant knew what people were thinking. And for an ant coming from a society with a defined group of queens, the local class structures were both insulting and inefficient. That might put Ekict on the uninhabitable list.

There wasn’t really much for the Sergeant to do, so she put up with the freezing cold and chomped on people energy. Cold. Cold. Cold. Existential. Cold.

Wait what was that one?

The Sergeant focused on the feeling. She had been carefully inspecting the upper echelon of the sect. The energy was a bit strong for her, so she wasn’t digesting it. She went back just in case.

Her initial impression hadn’t been wrong. There was an icy tint over the existential uncertainty, but the flavor was quite clear. It reminded her of… nothing she had ever tasted. But was somehow familiar. What was it? And why was it so potent?

This wasn’t the first odd source of energy. There was the nothingness… and one more thing while she was in Arioron. An impossibly powerful taste that she’d convinced herself was a mistake both times, given how far apart they were. This could be the third mistake. But it was easily replicable.

Who was this person? A young woman. Too young, for her strength. Except that was never true. Human cultivators had the possibility to grow with frightening speed on occasion, based on natural talent and circumstances. This, then, should be the same.

But it was still highly suspect. How could she find out more? Obviously it was too risky to ask Anishka for information. That would only lead to many questions, and people looking for answers that couldn’t be given along with danger for the young woman.

She had to think. Who could she follow, to learn this information? Then she remembered something. Something very human, yet so useful she’d forgotten. Writing. Humans did that, and she even knew how to read it. Mostly. She hadn’t thought she would be sent off on a spy mission, and it wasn’t necessary around the colony.

So, written records. Those would have to exist- Ekict didn’t have technology, like everywhere normal. Though many sects kept their records apart from technology anyway. That gave her a goal, and it only took a day of wandering the overly large halls while freezing her lower limbs off. But fortunately, her durability had grown during her mission, possibly due to eating such powerful energy. And that wasn’t counting the three anomalies. A little bit of cold wouldn’t actually kill her, which was a serious concern if she had been a normal ant.

She found the records, and proceeded to walk under the door. It almost worked, too. But a formation extended beyond the door itself. Chewing through it… didn’t work. It replenished the damage too quickly. If the Sergeant was bigger and stronger… no, that wouldn’t work. The gap was really quite small. Stronger, then, without growing larger. That gave her a goal, though she wasn’t sure if she could accomplish it.

-----

Shutoll. Chidi remembered the great relief he had felt upon reaching it. That relief didn’t last long, however.

Not because the city was compromised, or anything of that nature. No, because even as Captain Tiras was giving reports to the local leadership with Chidi waiting out in the hall, Chikere decided she was done ‘holding back’ with training.

It was silly of him to ever imagine Chikere cutting a city in half. She didn’t even scratch the walls as she came for him, avoiding all collateral damage if the strings holding his storage bag didn’t count. Which for her, they must not have.

That was fair enough, because she wouldn’t let something stop her attacks. On the other hand, Chidi was fairly confident that the grandmaster could maneuver her weapon around any obstruction without slowing. That was what it felt like every time his sword came up to block, or parry, or anything.

Then Chidi had to give a report while covered in blood- not dripping, because his wounds were stitched up. But he didn’t have time to clean.

“We really need to step this up, you know,” Chikere commented afterwards. “I’m not saying you’re learning slow. But if you want to achieve your stated goal of defeating Rakiya in twenty-five years, we can’t afford to waste time.”

“That was your goal,” Chidi said.

“Even more important, then.”

He would have complained, but everything hurt… and he did want to be strong. Anything to let him sort through his actions to conclusively determine whether everything had been a big mistake.

-----

Even at his age, or perhaps especially at his age, Anton needed to take some time for himself. He’d spend one lifetime focused on others, and he couldn’t say that his second had been all that different. But he still recognized some difference. Perhaps it was just that he was more capable of doing what he thought he should be able to do. He hadn’t dealt well with getting old.

Now, when he was away from a bound star he was weaker than normal. That hadn’t proved disastrous in the brief battle involving Shrenn and Tenoun’a, but the sibling planets could have certainly caused him to be in real danger had either focused on him for some reason. Even though he considered himself above Life Transformation cultivators, he was no so far ahead of them that the difference could be ignored. Outside of the proper radius of one of his stars, at least.

For his own sake, he had taken the relatively short hop over to Azun. In’istra was only a few systems over, turning the trip from a lengthy process to a short vacation measured in weeks on the top end. His ability to move through the void between stars was always improving, especially having traveled four hundred lightyears and back, then out again. Even if he hadn’t necessarily been in all of the intervening space, it was a truly unfathomable distance that meant nothing to him except for that it was between systems. The same was not true of travel in other ways, with roads built on the hard work of those who came before.

… Star roads. There was a thought. Not something he would actually get much done with, of course, but perhaps someone else could determine if there was a viable concept there. Though the various methods they had worked far better than he could have anticipated even when he was in Life Transformation. Assimilation was a big leap forward.

Azun was a great comfort. It was a roaring fire in winter, a heavy blanket coating him. And, yes, he understood that such a fire could overwhelm him and turn him to ash. The weight of the neutron star could crush him with himself. But the same was true for many interactions Anton was involved with on the other side. He simply trusted that it would not do such to him, as he avoided doing to others. Though of course, Azun probably didn’t think or have will.

Anton couldn’t be completely certain of that, even if he hadn’t seen any real signs of it from Azun or any other star. Because anything of such vast power could quite possibly have a consciousness he was unable to understand. If so, Anton was glad it did not mind sharing a little bit of itself.

He reveled in the fire and weight, as well as the magnetism which was so powerful as to reveal how it affected anything with the slightest notion that it was magnetic, the field affect it all with so much vigor that his clothes felt like metal weights holding him back. But as he moved around through it, he felt how it resisted the motion… and cataloged insights to share with Varghese. Anton wanted to bring the young man to this place some day, but he would have to be able to survive the trip. Anton could manage most of that, but to be safe it was better if he was stronger. And perhaps facing the overwhelming power of it would have the opposite effect, if he was not ready. Some people were discouraged by what they felt they could not reach. Anton had never been the sort, and now he was not truly convinced there was any height he couldn’t reach.

Even if Domination was another order of magnitude beyond his comprehension, he could still envision reaching such a level of power at some point in the future. Assuming he lived that long. He was no longer considering that as a factor in anything he did, but it was an important point. He was fairly certain that his lifespan was growing and depleting at similar rates, or perhaps expired but somehow not falling over the threshold. The latter seemed more unlikely, but he wasn’t truly sure.

He should set up a farm. The thought went through Anton’s mind anything he was not on a farm, admittedly. But it was particularly ridiculous where he was. Azun wasn’t exactly a good source of anything but gravity, and it didn’t have planets anyway. Unless he could get something to grow in space, orbiting around the star…

But Anton was not a creator of life. Even selective breeding of plants didn’t reveal new traits, only recombining what was already possible. Anything beyond that was not in Anton’s wheelhouse. But should he stumble across something so miraculous, he would consider putting some here.

-----

Though there were no messages going off planet at the moment, Chidi still gave one to be delivered should the time come. It had alternated between asking his parents for rescue and telling them he was fine and without worry. Ultimately, he just noted that he was alive along with Aconite.

He was unsure if the message would reach them. Technically, he didn’t even know they were alive- he just believe they would be, despite intending to go up against saints. And if they could plan to take down Augmentation cultivators while only in Intregration, couldn’t he do the same thing? It was just… he wouldn’t even be peak Life Transformation in twenty-five years. In fact, he might not even be early Life Transformation. Did Chikere not remember how long it took? If he recalled correctly, she took around the full century that was the minimum training time of those from Ceretos. Though information on her was often sparse, her ascension had not been subtle.

All of those thoughts were for later. Training, too. For now, he needed to enjoy the small break that Chikere’s absence provided, before he had to contribute to missions for Shutoll. They would still be scouting, of course, but Chidi wasn’t sure if he would be part of the same squad, or what would happen with any of the others. He would still help train anyone who wanted it while they were together, if either side was up for it.

“How do you feel about all of this, Aconite?” Chidi asked. “We’ve survived. For now, at least.”

“And we will continue to survive,” she declared. “We cannot leave, not without considering our ability to engage in space combat, but I also do not think we must. This is what you wanted, a good tempering ground.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Chidi sighed. “I wish it didn’t come with so much death. On our side, of course.” Though he wasn’t fully comfortable with the enemies he’d slain either. He had to do it to survive, but aside from a few of them, were the Harmonious Citadel disciples really here by choice? Even more reason to kill those leading them. But he was not going to hold back in a combat situation, especially not with how close things had already been.