Starlight Life Of The Sage

Public Release: March 7th, 2019 - 3:30 am EST

Zara stood on the cusp of the Soldier Garden, just beyond its edge, and planned to fight her foe there. She didn't want to take the fighting inside the forest because that could put her teacher at risk. A Sky Rank Golem could stop most shockwaves and collateral damage if there was enough distance, even in a battle between Heaven Tier forces.

"Hello there," said Zara as her foe finally appeared. She could feel his aura completely, now, and it terrified her. It felt like she was facing down Aria, not some no-named Ascendant from a backwards world.

Zara realized she needed to change the way she looked at this mana world. She viewed it, initially, as a place she could steal resources and strength from, a place she could probably invade and take over with some preparations, but now she knew better. She had thought, perhaps, there were no Ascendants in this world since she hadn't seen any. She remembered her teacher saying something about the two of them being 'In a backwoods locale', or something along those lines.

It turned out her teacher was right. Who would have thought? Zara certainly didn't. That senile old fool was adorable and kind, but he was never great at dealing with matters past the Ascendant Rungs.

It turned out, when a person was respected by the entire goddamn world, they didn't tend to get much combat experience. Her Teacher had never had to fight an enemy past the level of Dao Soul, let alone anyone in the Ascendant Rungs.

Who would dare try to fight 'The Progenitor'? Who would dare fight 'The Sage'? To do so would make the world your enemy.

Of the 46 known Ascendants and 3 that went beyond Ascendant, 48 of them were taught by or influenced by The Sage at one point. 40 f.u.c.k.i.n.g 8.

-

"Greetings," replied the expressionless man. "My name is Fractal. I am a Scion of the Green Tower."

"I am Zara, eleventh disciple of The Sage."

"I do not know of this The Sage. I know of a few people that are recorded as being Sages, though. Which one is your master?"

"Most people never knew my Master's real name. You see, they called him The Sage for so long that even he started to forget it…"

"Then I probably do not know him, since the three Sages I know of all had well-known names," said Fractal.

"So," said Zara, "Care to explain why you're here and confronting me?"

"I owed a life debt to Avalon, the man known as the Tin City Lord."

"And he called in a favor to a Heaven Knight for petty revenge?" Zara tilted her head to the side.

"I owed the favor and he's the one to choose how it's spent. Don't ask me," replied Fractal. "I am greatly sorry for having to cut down someone I don't know. This battle will be hard for both of us, though. If you're willing to just turn and leave the Tin City, never to return, I'd be willing to say I killed you without us actually having to fight."

Zara stopped her own preparations for a moment. The Qi she was weaving scattered.

"Are you serious?" she asked.

"Yes. You just need to never show your face in the Tin City again and hand over your disciple so I can have her marry Avalon's son…"

"Ahhh, there it is," said Zara. "Yeah, the answer is no. Let's just f.u.c.k.i.n.g kill each other."

"Shame," said Fractal. His aura redoubled and mana swirled from his head. His body started to bulk up. He drew his sword from the scabbard; it shined like a newborn star, dazzling in its radiance.

Zara drew her own weapon out, for the first time in a very long time. A long curved blade appeared in her hands.

"Strange," said Fractal. "You use an untiered weapon?"

Zara tilted her head to the side, but then her eyes opened in realization. Her opponent couldn't sense the Qi surging in her sword. When she came over to this world, due to her being afraid to switch all of her cultivation to a mana source at once, Zara only switched her Outer Cultivation. She never completely swapped over her Alchemical setup or her Weapon Cultivation.

Zara recognized that she had an information advantage. She grinned.

"I have some martial skills that only work with a weapon," she said.

"They why haven't you crafted and trained a tiered one?" asked Fractal.

Zara didn't reply. She drove her Outer Cultivation and her aura as a mid-tier Heaven Knight flared to life. Her Alchemical skills were working simultaneously, but through the power of Qi instead. One by one her golems started to appear alongside the forest edge.

Not even Arc would have an easy time if he dove into her golem lines.

Zara was a strong outer cultivator, and she had a strong weapon cultivation…

But both paled in comparison to her skills in Alchemy and Arrays. Her true talent in that field surpassed even her Teacher.

It surpassed everyone else in her home world.

Zara was a mere mid Ascendant in her cultivation, but she was at the very upper limits of Ascendancy in regards to her Alchemy skills!

-

The battle started. Both fighters crossed blades, neither using all their powers. They wanted to test each other first.

The sheer impact from their swords meeting created a shockwave in the air that threatened to destroy everything around them for miles. Thankfully, since they met swords in the sky, nothing was destroyed.

The two started rising higher and higher up, both fearing the collateral damage they'd cause. Neither wanted to bring harm to Cara, albeit for different reasons entirely.

Spectators from the Tin City lost sight of the two warriors as they reached the clouds, but everyone could feel their blows. The sounds of thunder echoed across the clear skies. Birds fell from the air around them and the sun turned red, hiding behind a film of raw mana.

In the middle of the morning the sky was ripped open, revealing the big black empty behind it; it shined with stars.

-

Cara could feel the Spirit of the Soldier Garden and she grabbed hold of it. Blood poured from her nose and mouth as she stressed her cultivation to the very limits. Afraid of harming her, the Golem that had been keeping her contained decided to hand her back the halberd.

With her weapon in hands, Cara's cultivation surged and her efforts redoubled. She roared as she used all of her skills.

[Spirit Forge has reached level 7!]

A popup screen tried to distract her, but she didn't let it. She could feel her rapport and connection to the Soldier Garden increasing. She could feel her own strength increasing too. Mana from the land started to redirect itself. Leylines were reforged and encircled Cara's treehouse. Her cultivation started to climb even in the midst of a battle for control.

Cara screamed and her halberd glowed white-hot. The Halberd's Houtian Cultivation smashed against its bottleneck like a freight train hitting a small wooden barricade. The bottleneck vanished like it was never there, and Cara's Weapon Cultivation roared into the Xantian Rungs.

For Weapon Cultivation, like Outer Cultivation, the Xantian realm had Six Rungs. The first was refining the Weapon's Name. One needed to name their weapon to let its spirit develop.

"I name you," Cara's voice trembled as it grew louder, climbing until it could be heard over the roars of the thunderous battle above, "I NAME YOU 'SPIRIT'S BANE!'"

Her voice echoed in the treehouse, and the heavens above trembled as if in reply.

A name was a powerful thing. With a new name gained, Spirit's Bane came alive in Cara's hands. It took its new name in stride and, with a flick of her hands, cut down on the string of mana connecting the Spirit of the Soldier Garden to that bastard Mage in the sky.

Cara's laughter sounded like breaking glass. The mana surging into her increased further now that it wasn't being siphoned away by another. Her own outer cultivation soared like a rocket, and she immediately hit the peak of the Second Crack for her Body Technique.

Her skin turned red in color and steam came off her body. Her robes combusted from the heat. The fire was put out by the overseeing Golem.

Cara pulled out a pill and popped it in her mouth. She felt Zara's gentle Qi invade her body. Her temperature cooled a few degrees and the pain lessened. A soft power surged in her body's center, from her stomach, and the Qi in the pill formed a false dantian. Cara's meridians were healed now, and they came alive to drink that fresh power, spreading it to every inch of her being.

She grit her teeth and she pushed hard. She couldn't waste that moment. She had already done her duty as a master. The rest of the battle above was on Zara, now.

Cara cut off her perception of the skies and focused entirely on her own breakthrough.

-

Fractal coughed hard and almost spit up blood as someone cut down his attempt to snatch the spirit of the Soldier Garden. He roared and his energies flared, but he lacked a secondary source of mana to supplement his spellcasting now.

One by one his buffs started to run out. He felt his foe advancing and he started retreating. He wanted to curse aloud. There had to be another Heaven-tier person hiding below. That was the only explanation. It certainly couldn't have been the little disciple who did that. The level of energy control needed required at least centuries of practice to achieve!

"Who!?" he bellowed as he looked around.

Zara smiled wider as she sensed the connection break.

The Mage above tried to pull on the Spirit's energy again, but found it completely impossible now. The Spirit belonged to another, and he couldn't wrest control of it.

"Fine, fine! You're still just a Knight! Let's see how you stand up to my magic and my Artifact-tier Sword!"

A new energy started to build up in Fractal's body. Around him blue balls of fire started to form, each filled with a destructive force. His blade glowed blue, too, and flame danced along its edge.

Zara didn't want to clash with her foe after seeing his new techniques. She could feel a tremendous Dao from the fires, and if she met it head on she'd probably come out behind. She started moving towards the ground.

Zara called upon all of her free golems from the forest and she pulled out several herbs during her descent, some filled with mana and others with Qi.

She hadn't ever performed this technique yet, but she theorized about it every single day since her arrival in this foreign world.

Rather than use just mana or just Qi in her Alchemy, what would the results be if she used BOTH!?

Zara knew the answer in her heart. She could see the formulas and combinations in front of her, as she mapped them out in her mind. She could see through the very fabrics that wove together the universe. And she could feel a Divine Will high in the skies above watching her. She grinned.

She dropped from the sky like a falling star and her hands burned herb after herb in the interim, extracting their medical properties and essences like nothing. Her skills were so refined that they appeared to transcend the bounds of reality itself.

As the essences combined together, a new energy formed, something that wasn't mana and also wasn't Qi.

A Divine Will appeared and was borne by her hands.

The skies trembled and split apart as a new force blossomed.

A breakthrough occurred.

Zara's alchemy was no longer bound by the rank of Ascendant. Just like Arc and Tuku before her, she was the third of the Disciples to go Beyond, to tread the Divine.

-

Fractal didn't sense what was taking place. He was focused on smiting the woman in front of him. His expressionless mask was shredded apart and he chased her, a blue fire swelling in his hands, growing bigger and bigger still, as if it wanted to encircle the entire Soldier Garden beneath it.

He roared and cut his sword down, launching the ball of liquid, blue fire. He let loose a dwarf star into the world.

Trees bent away and floundered in the winds. The Tin City could only see blue above them, as if the sky had returned, but they knew they weren't looking at the sky.

The heat alone started to melt the metals of the City walls. Those below the realm of Knight started to lose consciousness from the heat alone.

-

Zara stopped at the canopy and felt her golems come to her, where they transformed into their components and joined the medical essence in her right palm. It compressed further and further until she held only a single white spark between her fingers.

She turned around and faced upwards, towards the oncoming wall of blue, and she grinned.

"Teacher, I think I've completely surpassed you, now," she said. She threw up her right hand, and the spark floated above her, like a firefly, swaying left and right as it moved.

The spark touched the wall of blue. Time stopped moving. The blue fireball stopped moving down. Its heat vanished all at once and it swelled inwards like the rubber of a poked balloon. The white spark started to expand in a cross shape.

"Alchemical Bomb Number 779," said Zara in a quiet voice. "My greatest creation. A combination between two energies. Go, my own Divinity!"

The blue fire disappeared from the sky and everything turned white. All the onlookers in the Tin City closed their eyes, but even then they could see the white light still!

In her treehouse, cackling like a madwoman, Cara completed her breakthrough in a world of pure white. "That's my girl, Zara," she said with blood on her lips. Her third crack appeared, then, splitting her soul. She screamed in pain but felt pure joy in her heart.

Fractal watched with pride as his greatest attack, his Blue Fire Star, dropped towards the world below. He knew the City Lord had already evacuated the Tin City alongside his son, so there was no fear of killing his benefactor. He regretted having to kill the girl Cara, but he didn't have much of a choice. The green-haired woman was far stronger than he anticipated and she had a hidden ally waiting in the wings…

But then he felt it. His attack stopped. A white light bloomed below and he felt it coming for him, a power on the level of a Patron God, a power that went above Tier 1. A power that broke through the Heavens and left Knighthood behind. A power that simply went Beyond the known.

And he knew that this was the moment of his death.