Elder Cultivator

Chapter 1008

A small emission of energy from his communicator told Anton he’d received a new message. Anyone who was able to contact him was someone he was interested in responding to promptly, even if it didn’t come in as an emergency communication.

Though he’d been in the midst of training, that was a fairly common thing. Some levels of training were deeper and more delicate, but for the most part Anton was focusing on small improvements he could make gradually. He only advanced to another star every decade or more, his overall power growing slowly. Anton wouldn’t say his archery techniques were perfect, but they were close enough his development was extremely gradual.

Not that he was disappointed. Expecting to increase in strength faster than he was would be rather ridiculous. Even if it was possible, Anton was already more than satisfied. He never thought he would come anywhere close, back when he was in Spirit Building. That was the time he first came across Fleeting Youth, and even Life Transformation had seemed terribly far away, let alone Ascension. He certainly hadn’t considered there was an alternate path at the time.

He pulled out his communicator, finding the message from Matija. She occasionally sent messages about her work, given their mutual interests. However, she very rarely recommended he come see a star she was studying quickly. But that was what her message indicated this time.

He read it again.

“Our team has been studying the star now designated Maheg. Fascinating readings have been recorded, and your presence to help interpret them in person would be greatly appreciated.”

Attached was an energy impression, though it could only replicate the average feel of something over a period of time. Useful for distinguishing things like cultivation techniques and even individuals, but insufficient to do much else. Unless Anton was in a proper facility set up to replicate the full magnitude of a star with the information from tens of thousands of sensors, he could only get an extremely vague approximate.

He wasn’t sure how to interpret the natural energy that Maheg released. Indeed, if he hadn’t been informed it was a star he might have interpreted it as something else. Obviously he was missing the full magnitude of power displayed, but beyond that metric it also seemed off. Ascribing any specific feeling to it seemed hasty, but he could certainly agree that it was odd.

If Matija had sent more information his way, Anton might have discerned more. However, that would have taken quite a while, as even simple energy impressions were much more data intensive than text, audio, or video.

He was fairly certain that Matija had some sort of theory for what the anomaly was, but she hadn’t mentioned it so as to not taint his own opinion. Anton had to admit he was quite curious.

Maheg was some way to the south, in an area that was unpopulated. Anton wasn’t sure if this was a time-limited phenomenon, though it sounded like it had been ongoing for a while. Either way, his initial exposure was enough to make him curious enough to set out immediately.

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The insights Alva had shared about subspace were more focused on the aspect of archery than general traversal, though Anton found himself slightly faster. Still slower than traveling between bound systems, of course, and the methods he used there involved different techniques. Ultimately he arrived in about a month, and as soon as he entered the system he wondered if the phenomenon was still ongoing.

Then a wave of energy brushed over him. It was gentle, but powerful. There were more than a few oddities there, but Anton reserved his impression. Rather than reaching out, Anton let himself passively feel the energy of Maheg. It was on the larger end of stars, though well short of the threshold for a giant star. Perhaps ten times the mass of Ceretos’ star, it was several orders of magnitude brighter. Ultimately it appeared a bright blue, though looking at such a star from within the system without being blinded would be impossible for lesser cultivators.

It was a powerful star, but it also had a weird flow to its energy. It was too… regular? Ordered? Either way, it didn’t mass the chaotic flow Anton had come to expect.

He made his way towards the star and Matija’s ship. There were only a few small rocky planets, and they didn’t seem to be of much interest. Certainly not more than the star.

In idle curiosity, Anton reached out towards the star as he got closer, wondering what it felt like deeper in. It was a difficult task even for someone like him, as his energy would get broken down rapidly. Even so, he hadn’t expected it to be so abrupt. His sensory energy was cut off before he could get very deep at all. Anton knew he could do better up close, and if he was bound to the star its energy wouldn’t hinder him, but he found it odd.

Various possibilities flowed through Anton’s head, though there was one that was particularly unlikely that he tried not to linger on. There was probably a better explanation for the oddness.

That was what Anton said to himself as he got closer, but even though there wasn’t another wave of energy brushing over him, he still felt odd. Like he was being watched. He knew it wasn’t Matija or the rest of the scientists, because he could properly feel that from them when he got close.

Many generations of Ruteran technology had passed since Anton had first come into contact with Matija, and there were a much larger number of people interested in leaving a ship in space. The process was much smoother, like everything else. It was a much better ship, and not just because of technological advancements. It turned out when you’d been a leading scientist in a certain area for enough centuries, you could get the best equipment instead of what was affordable for surveying neighboring systems.

“Good to see you again,” Matija said. She looked older, now. A few wrinkles and graying hairs. It had been long enough that if she hadn’t reached Assimilation, she would be dead many times over. It didn’t seem that she was ever going to reach Enrichment, but that hadn’t been likely to begin with. Her talent was decent, but even if her cultivation improved with her work that only went so far. Anton doubted more than one in a billion people even had the slightest potential to reach Enrichment, and just because they could didn’t mean they wouldn’t fail along the way.

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“Indeed,” Anton smiled. “We have here quite an odd star. What do you think of it?”

“My thoughts are written down. I’d be interested to see if you came to the same conclusion as me, though I will admit having an advantage of time spent studying this. Your intuition for star based phenomenon, however, runs in a different vein than mine.”

Anton nodded. He reached out for the star one more time, feeling its surface. He could detect no solar flares, just a nearly uniform surface. It wasn’t a regularity brought about by random chance, as stars naturally released volatile energy simply due to their mass. Which meant it was intentional… and persistent.

“It could be some sort of modification…” Anton postulated. “Were there any locals here?”

“Yes, actually,” Matija said. “On some of the planets. But they don’t seem to have reached spacefaring.”

“Perhaps someone else came through,” Anton said.

“But you don’t think that’s what it is,” Matija replied.

Anton walked over to the main screen, filtering out the vast majority of incoming light and other energy and leaving only the tiniest fraction. It was still almost blindingly bright. He looked at the star. And if he wasn’t wrong, it looked at him. “Just based on the way it actively sensed me, I would posit some level of sentience.” He turned to Matija. “Should we be discussing it here?”

“We don’t think it understands language,” Matija said, joining Anton. “It doesn’t appear hostile, though. It has reacted to our various probes, but it hasn’t destroyed any of them. It seems to recognize they are not dangerous. We don’t intend to try any actual attacks. Mostly because it would be rude, but also because… they probably still wouldn’t be registered as dangerous.”

“Stars are quite sturdy,” Anton agreed. “Difficult to disrupt. And I wouldn’t want to, either.” Anton looked around. “I’m not really sure what to do here.”

“You’d probably be better suited to some things we want to try. Since you’re… hopefully more friendly feeling? And quite a bit more noticeable than our ship.”

“What should I try?”

“A handshake, maybe?” Matija pondered. “Like, an extension of energy. Don’t reach all the way to it. See if it will respond.”

Anton nodded. “When did you first notice it reacting?”

“Well,” Matija tilted her head. “We noticed odd readings immediately. Like when we first arrived in the system. Even from neighboring systems it had been detected as anomalous, though. We didn’t quite understand what it was right away.”

Anton stretched out a strand of energy. More of a stream, thin enough he would be able to reach the still rather great distance to the star while making it durable and obvious. Anton didn’t know if the star would consciously register something the size of a finger, for example.

Assuming it was conscious. It could just have very odd energy that reacted to things in certain ways. Anton would have expected a continuous flow over him if that were the case, instead of a single moment of contact.

He held his ‘hand’ extended. “I suppose this might take a while. It might not understand our intentions, if it can even sense this.” Anton waited half an hour. He did sense some shifts Maheg’s energy, all the more obvious because of how regular it was in general. Even without being able to insert his energy within, he felt something of an internal flow, but not the kind natural to stars. More like a cultivation technique, but perhaps that was him presupposing a conclusion he’d assumed.

Anton thought for a few more moments. “The star is giving off quite a bit of energy, isn’t it? I don’t know if I would allow this much of my internal stores to leak out.”

“Well, that assumes several other things,” Matija said. “Like its ability to control it. Also, this should be a typical amount.”

“Hmm, that would lean back towards the mundane then, wouldn’t it?” Anton pondered. “Except… if it’s sentient and somewhat capable of cultivation, it might be stronger. So releasing a typical amount of energy might be more controlled.” And either way, since normal stars released such energy for millions of years- or far longer- then it wasn’t as if it was a serious issue. Perhaps it was actually better at keeping the energy than Anton.

He decided to prompt it. Rather than simply continue waiting, since he saw no further reaction Anton moved his extended ‘hand’. Not closer, but somewhat to the side. Then he extended another, bending it around the other direction and then twisting the streams of energy around each other. Then he retracted one, leaving the other extended towards the star.

For an hour, nothing happened. Then a rush of energy came, something like a solar flare stretching out, overwhelming Anton’s energy. It avoided the ship, but the extended ‘hand’ was annihilated. The ship’s shields still flared, even being out of the direct path.

Anton had thought it capable of finer manipulation than that… but perhaps anything between sensing and that was difficult for it. Or maybe it wanted to tell him to go away.

Gathering more energy, Anton made a more serious attempt. He drew on his natural energy from both himself and various more distant stars, creating a much larger and more substantial river of energy. It was still relatively smaller, but he held it well out of the way of the ship, letting it linger.

The star responded more quickly. It still took ten minutes, but it stretched out and met his own energy. Anton felt that it was trying to be careful, but it still annihilated his energy in a matter of moments. Even so, the energies mingled for a small bit. He didn’t feel anything like traditional emotions, but there was something there. And it wasn’t simply reacting to the presence of energy, or it likely would have already tried to devour him.

Fascinating. Anton was very curious about what would happen if he tried to bond to such a star and he also knew that if it had any malicious intent, opening himself like that could result in his annihilation. Even an unintentional reaction of confusion could spell the end for him. So he wouldn’t try that until he was sure it was safe- to a very high degree of certainty he might never achieve. He did still have things he needed to do with his life, after all.