Starlight Life Of The Sage

Public Release: March 15th, 2019 - 3:30 am EST

Cara peeked out from the front of the tent. The dark world outside was awash with noise ranging from the hammering of heavy raindrops to peals of thunder. A flash of lightning illuminated the world, and the eyes of magic beasts glowered in the darkness.

Cara grinned and slipped back into the tent. She didn't mind taking her time. There were plenty of days left until the 'training grounds' in the empire opened. There was no rush and she could use this time well.

-

The rain continued for two days. Cara taught her disciple everything she could of Earth's chemistry, physics, and logic. She also taught everything related to the mage path that she had learned.

Zara tried to undertake the Mage Path, but found herself lacking in talent. Despite her best efforts, she couldn't even build a crystal let alone crack one apart…

It was almost as if her body was diametrically opposed to it.

But, despite her failings in that, Zara absorbed every bit of knowledge she could about Earth-based sciences. She was like a sponge and didn't let a single piece of knowledge go and, for a moment, she desperately wanted to find a way to travel to this world known as 'Earth' in order to study its 'science' in person.

"Maybe one day," said Cara. "For now we have no real way of finding Earth. I don't know much of navigating other worlds, either. That's something I wanted to ask you about, actually…"

"Aria, Ye, and Arc were the ones who figured out how to send me here," said Zara. "Arc specifically cut open the path."

Cara didn't say anything to that. She wasn't entirely certain about the mechanics between traveling through different planes nor how Divinities factored into that.

"Are you able to communicate or send anything back to the others?" Cara asked.

"Yes. I send reports to them occasionally using a soul technique in tandem with an array."

-

Cara, herself, also studied under Zara's tutelage in regards to the limits of alchemy. Their relationship as master and disciple started to muddy a bit, and it became more of an exchange as equals, it moved closer to a friendship than anything else...

Just like Cara's friendship with her professor did in her second life, so many years ago.

Cara looked inwards at her own soul but she struggled to see or sense the shield resting upon it. She could really only sense the shield through its impact on her, whenever it touched her in some way. Most recently, it helped reinforce her Cracked Core cultivation, and it assisted her in building her foundations.

Cara's current cultivation was robust and powerful, with very few (if any) flaws.

-

Cara cultivated her Mage Path as best she could. She decided to add her first spell array, then. She looked among the lowest ranked spells that she had collected from the Library of the Four Families. Of the 10th Rank spells, she identified a few that looked the most useful.

The way her cultivation technique worked was simple. Rather than needing to redo her array-based spells every day, she could input them once to learn them forever, but the number she could learn was limited.

As she was only at the 10th Rank, the Houtian Realm, she could only learn two of the lowest rank spells.

Once she reached the 9th Rank, though, she'd be able to learn up to five of the lowest rank spells and two 9th Rank spells.

The numbers scaled up with every crystal shard she connected to her soul, but (since she was such a low ranked mage) she needed to be picky at the moment.

-

Cara sifted through the spells she could learn. She didn't particularly care for anything offensive since she already had the ability to deal damage through her martial arts techniques. Her Heaven's Light Boxing could deal significant damage to most foes and her Monkey-Style staff combat could be applied to her halberd…

Though she did realize the need to train a new style to use specifically with her weapon.

Cara also knew she didn't need anything detection-based. Her Spirit Contractor ability gave her heightened senses and the ability to sense energy to a better degree in some ways than even her Ascendant-level disciple.

Cara also didn't need any defensive techniques, either, because her Outer Cultivation technique provided her with Jade-like skin that could weather attacks better than almost any armor.

The things Cara lacked most were utility and speed.

In the groups of lowest ranked spells, Cara found a few she particularly liked. 'Rabbit's Foot' was a spell that increased her movement speed, much like a buff from a video game.

She decided to use 'Rabbit's Foot' immediately, seeing its benefits and ease of use as the best aspects of it.

The second spell she chose, though, was a spell called 'Mind's Hand'. The spell 'Mind's Hand' allowed her to create a hand of mana to grab objects within a short distance of her and move them. The Hand itself had very little strength behind it, but the utility of it was immense.

Cara didn't like fighting dirty, but she couldn't help but imagine how debilitating it would be if, mid-fight, an invisible hand of mana poked her foe in the eyes.

-

Cara started forming the array paths for the new spells in her mind.

Zara watched on from the side, overtaken with jealousy. She couldn't help but imagine how much faster her alchemy would advance if she had a third hand to assist her. She ended up biting on the fringe of her robe, her eyes narrowing in anger over her being unable to succeed at cultivating the Mage Path.

Zara had a speculation about why she struggled so much with the Paths of the magic world, and that speculation dealt with the fact that she lacked a 'Status'.

Zara thought that, perhaps, a 'Status' was something gifted to a body from the magic world and, since her teacher's body originated in the magic world, her teacher could have a 'Status'... But Zara couldn't have one for the same reason, her body was born in a world of Qi.

Zara started meditating on her alchemy while her teacher trained, and she hoped against all odds that she was wrong. Even after achieving a Divinity she knew it wouldn't be enough to beat Arc or Tuku. She wanted to become the strongest of all the Twelve, and she couldn't do it with her limited Paths.

-

Cara's meditation lasted another day. When she woke from it, she found herself alone in the tent. She opened the front flap and looked out on a beautiful, damp world. Zara was standing on the cliffside overlooking the valley before them, her eyes small but her face relaxed. She looked contemplative, as if she were thinking deeply about something profound…

"Teacher," said Zara without turning around.

"Yeah, Zara?"

"Should I put the bunny ears on Gen, or the cat ears?"

Cara didn't answer. She smiled, though, and walked up to the cliff's edge. She sat down for a moment and let her legs hang over the side. Up in the sky the clouds were breaking apart, revealing the sun's warmth and light to the Soldier Garden.

"Definitely the bunny ears," said Cara after a long pause.