Chapter 548
There was a significant and obvious problem if Anton wanted to alter the flow of the tides of the world. It was not a small project, but that wasnt the most important factor. Instead it was familiarity and connection. Ceretos Anton had lived upon for two hundred and thirty years, multiple reasonable lifetimes. Rutera, the system Anton was next most familiar with, he had only a handful of years or decades, and only as a visitor. He honestly didnt even know where to start, or if he should. It was a question of how long it would take, among other things.
Theoretically, anyone born on Rutera at the very moment he was contemting could reach Antons level of power by the time of the invasion. That meant any of those who had been cultivating since their first contact with Ceretos would have several more decades than that. If they began to learn and practice the techniques now, perhaps they could do something. Or it might take a century or more regardless of the familiarity.
Anton frowned. He hadnt been nning to make an actualrge change without consulting them, but he was quite fond of Rutera. Some of the people there were like family. But from that perspective, he should just help them be the best they could be. He could work with the other cultivators on Ceretos tobine their efforts, if there was anything that could functionally be changed about the tide of the world in the time they had. Could they hold off an invasion by years, decades? Given their status, that would be more advantageous to them than the enemy.
Sadly, Anton didnt know. All he knew was that on some level the techniques described were possible- but so was Anton moving a between systems one chunk at a time, if he didnt die of old age. The question is what could actually be done. And for the moment the answer was practice with patience. The next cycle woulde and allow an invasion, and at worst they might keep themselves isted only to direct more forces towards their allies. So if anything could be changed, more understanding was necessary first.
That would take time, but while waiting Anton could check out neighboring systems. They might find others, hopefully more on the friendly side or at least not aggressive.
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Despite the significantly greater distances involved, messages between the upper and lower realms were only a few times slower than those between nearby systems in the lower realms, at least with the current functionality. Either could theoretically be improved at some point by formation masters of significant drive and talent.
That included Catarina, but she was not interested in that aspect at the moment. Instead, she was still working out how to transfer techniques back and forth. There had been some sess, but it wasnt the problem of transmitting that was holding her back, exactly. Rather, it was replicating any technique without the hand of the original author. There was sometimes arge difference between the words on the page and the thoughts imbued into the page, and a copy of just the technical wording would often result in an inferior or simply iplete technique.
Perhaps that was a weakness of the creators, unable to express themselves in words. It was true that many concepts were extremely difficult tomunicate, but some techniques were overlyplex and some could simply be described more clearly. Though it was useful for Catarina and her type of learning, not everyone would do well hearing how long to have energy flow through which meridians for exactly how long in what direction.
And she hadnt even gotten to the issues of differences between upper and lower energy.
At least word from Anton was that the war with the Snis Cluster was over. It was hard for her to imagine so many Worldbinding cultivators, or rather she hadnt even seen Assimtion cultivators. Treating them just like Integration cultivators was not correct either. One gained power from using a greater type of energy, another gained power from quantity and replenishment of the energy they were already used to. A cultivator in the upper realms who upper realms who managed both would be nearly unstoppable but perhaps those were Augmentation or Domination cultivators.
Even with ess to Everheart, there wasnt that much information about them. There was only so much the man was willing to share, though Catarina suspected it was not only forck of helpfulness. Instead, she detected a hint of shame atck of information- but that could have been her reading between the lines. A risk at the best of times when one was notmunicating with maniptive assholes, which was one of the <em>nicer</em> things people called Everheart.
But she trusted his words as far as her grandfather did which was a little bit. Somehow, even through the vast distances between them their messages were distinct. One radiated cold detachment, the other love despite them not having seen each other in decades. And they wouldnt for another century yet. There were methods to travel to the lower realms even when the tides of the world didnt quite match up, as Everheart showed, but it was not something to be done lightly. Returning would be more difficult and costly, and Catarina had too much to do in the upper realm to spend an amount of time in the lower realms worth the effort and cost- years, at least.
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Citadels Downfall seemed, at first, to be a bunch of disconnected moves. Carefully formted, yes, and a list of appropriate counters for the style the Harmonious Citadel disyed, but little more than that. Included within were also techniques for disrupting the flow of their cultivation technique which Vari found much more useful- and concerning. Though her own version was quite modified, serious ws were revealed that could reduce her power by a significant margin if properly exploited. However, if she could remove those ws while still keeping the important fundamentals of her style- including the ability to draw upon those of the Harmonious Citadel and the saints in particr- then she would have a serious advantage.
Was it enough to make up for being an Integration cultivator against Augmentation cultivators? Likely not. And though she wasnt nning to go into any such battle alone, she also couldnt expect odds much better than one-to-one. Still, these techniques being distributed more widely would improve the power of their alliance. It just had to <em>also</em> not fall into the hands of the Harmonious Citadel or they might fix their ws.
Though it looked like the counters mentioned were simply individual moves, once she began to practice them Vari felt something different. Something more to it. Maybe everything would fit together into a moreprehensive style of its own, though not one with strict moves. That was what she felt, though after extensive self training she also knew she would need practical experience. That meant fighting against the Harmonious Citadel.
She was not reluctant to do so- in fact she was rather eager- but only those who were the upper echelon, the practitioners of the Glorious Harmony Technique and the saints. They were responsible for all of the problems. Those who practiced the Holy Harmony Technique, like she had, were simply pawns. Unknowing, for the most part. They would be dealt with when she had to, but Vari preferred facing the <em>actual</em> problems if at all possible.
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The system used for describing the rtive locations of systems had been generally agreed upon. From the perspective of Ceretos, the center of the gxy was north, eventually leading to the upper realms and much closer leading to Weos. Rutera was rotationally clockwise, which was west. The Snis Cluster was also mainly west or slightly northwest. Thus, in the search for new systems, Anton found it most appropriate to go east or south.
Though he had one additional star he could bind to, Anton kept that in reserve, traveling not under his own power but in a proper interster ship. It was capable of a significant distance of travel as long as Anton was not in any particr haste, spending monthsbing through a system or two.
That was an important feature, as the system to the east did not have much in the way of natural energy. The stars always had it in abundance, the great power they produced likewiseing with strands of energy that could be transformed and wielded. The empty, lifeless worlds however had very little natural energy to speak of- only what was trapped there by their gravity, Anton postted. Though the more sizables were not insignificant in power, it was less readily essible in the form of great storms, powerful icy oceans, or the like.
Though thes were lifeless, Anton didnt find it unpleasant to visit them. It was not the same as visiting somewhere that <em>should</em> have been alive and finding it barren. For human life, and those sharings with them like the majority of what Anton had seen, there were eptable temperature and atmospheric ranges that those systems simply didnt have. Gravity, too. Humans would not survive to cultivate with too much gravity, and too little would have different issues.
Anton explored these emptys, poking around interesting ces. Some had great volcanic activity and interesting crystal formations that would not develop in a with the atmospheres he expected. Others were more like the moon- more or less round and featureless except for pockmarks from impacts over the millennia and more they had been around.
Some would have been looking for resources. Anton didnt find it particrly enticing to pull out hundreds of tons of raw metals and refine them, and if that was truly something desirable it could be done back in his home system. Asteroids just floated around with masses of metal rtively easy to get to. As for anything unique, Anton didnt have the qualifications to judge it. He did pick up a few samples of things he didnt <em>think</em> hed seen elsewhere, but doubtless he would be corrected.
Only a few eager explorers came with Anton to help with logging information. Ceretos had ns for longer term expeditions, but Anton was mostly interested in poking his head around and then leaving. Elsewhere, Rutera and Weos were back to the same, or would be now that the war was over.
There were only a few peculiarities Anton thought particrly notable, besides the differences in stars themselves. He would someday experiment how different stars affected his abilities more.
As for the oddities, there was one system in particr that had a number ofs and moons orbiting perpendicr to the general orbital ne. What ne that might be was difficult to determine, but approximately half of thes went one way and half the other. And, while moons would normally stick to the same ne the rotated around, the same was true for them- about half followed theirs and half went perpendicr around the other way.
That most certainly did not seem natural, given how gravity tended to tug things into one ne, but maybe they struck a perfect bnce or simply had not had the time to shift into the normal configuration yet. The important part was Anton had not found any life, human or otherwise. Cultivators might eventually be interested in expanding to live in any of the convenient systems to the east, but as they were it was of little practical merit.
The more promising ones were to the south. Anton had only chosen east because it was the direction the other systems had the least ess to, because they were somewhat closer, and because of idle curiosity. He was also nervous, as entering a system without a star he had assimted would make him vulnerable. Though realistically everyone else with him would be <em>more</em> vulnerable, as he was still stronger than a Life Transformation cultivator regardless. Ultimately, a few months wouldnt make a difference either way, and the order he chose to go to ces shouldnt matter- or at least it couldnt be predicted <em>how</em> it would matter.