Elder Cultivator

The second human that Bear Hug ever might might have actually been a tree in disguise. Lev didn’t feel much like a human. He wasn’t warm and full of the sky. He did come from the sky though, and he knew enough about Anton that Bear Hug was sure he was the right one.

“You talk funny,” Bear Hug commented. “You don’t speak slowly like me but your words twist about each other a lot.”

“I’m actually used to speaking verbally,” Lev pointed out. He’d been able to fairly quickly pick up the basics of this energy based language, as it was designed to be intuitive. The control part was easy for someone of his level.

“I was told about that and it seems weird.”

“Not everyone has energy,” Lev said.

“You can talk to Anton. What is he doing?”

Lev chuckled to himself. “It takes time for messages to come and go, you know. As for what he’s doing… hopefully nothing. Everything is better when he doesn’t have to fight.”

“But sometimes you have to fight. A bunch of really mean guys came from the sky recently and tried to eat me! I think they were a bad influence because some fish from downstream also seriously tried to eat me. They didn’t stop when I poked them on the head.”

Lev wasn’t sure how to reply to that. To many, Bear Hug probably felt like a big pile of food just laying there in the lake. Ultimately, Bear Hug wasn’t looking for a response.

Lev shook his head. “Not really.” He sometimes had to stop and ask Abioye for words. “I speak of some like people, but even Grandfather Willow doesn’t think in that way apart from me.” They had a connection, and through that the grasping willow had developed a sense of friends and foes, but Grandfather Willow didn’t seem to think or speak. He was just an old and large tree with great power.

It was possible Lev could spark sapience within some of his trees, but he didn’t really think he wanted to. Not with there being so many ways it could go wrong.

“So, Bear Hug,” Lev said. “What are your plans?”

“I’m going to grow big and strong and make friends with everything. Even the briar patch. Then I think I will go to our other planets and do it again. Though maybe I will find a very nice lake and live there instead.”

Studying Bear Hug, Lev couldn’t say he had any more insights into how they cultivated than Anton did. A lack of a central energy system with meridians and a dantian just didn’t quite fit. Not for active and intentional control. But he was here- and not intending to interfere with things over the border anytime soon- so he was interested in trying to help Bear Hug’s growth.

“Did Anton help you train?” Lev asked.

“He taught me how to twist energy,” Bear Hug said. “And Anton made the sun good. But I already know how to grow.”

“I see. Let me know if you want to try to grow… differently.”

-----

Though the Scarlet Alliance had no intention to interfere directly with the brewing war, that didn’t mean Timothy was going to sit around and do nothing. He might be somewhat stronger inside the borders of the Scarlet Alliance, but he hadn’t been afraid to leave their borders before and certainly wasn’t now that he was stronger. Of everyone who could go, he was probably the safest. He would also attract the most attention.

A few systems away from the war the great powers were beginning in the southern Scarlet Midfields, Timothy found ships setting down on a particular planet. Some were planning to stay, while others were gearing up to go out again after resupplying. He thought the latter were the smart ones, because the war wouldn’t be constrained to its current area forever and those who settled would merely have to move again, and not without risk.

For all the vast plans of the Alliance, there were some difficulties. Specifically, even if they had the ships and were able to rapidly expand and make new refuge worlds, they kind of had to convince people to come. Residents of the Scarlet Midfields were generally well disposed towards the Alliance, but the fact that they were still living in their own systems meant they didn’t truly want to join- or they didn’t have the means.

Immigration wasn’t terribly restrictive- the bulk of the effort went to keeping out spies- but it was more difficult for the random average individual to travel from outside of the Scarlet Alliance. Meanwhile, if they were sufficiently motivated any citizen of the Alliance could travel from one end to the other without being wealthy in some manner.

Timothy looked down upon the planet and did his best to project a comforting, protective feeling. Protection was what he was good at, so the only difficulty was making sure it didn’t feel oppressive with the amount of power he had. “Do not be alarmed. You may have heard that the Scarlet Alliance is willing to offer you shelter.” Communications, at least, traveled faster than their fleets could. “This is true. We can direct you to safe planets we are establishing. Along with me are a number of ships that can help.”

Timothy wasn’t here just to come this far, however. It would be a bit much to personally go into systems where there was fighting, but he was certainly going to get closer. If his presence was excuse enough for either of the great powers to take exception, they would be able to concoct some excuse in the near future regardless.

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While he was around, Timothy broke up a number of fights. Tensions were high, and people likely felt they had to establish themselves in their own way. When they were suddenly unable to harm anyone else, people had no choice but to try to settle things other ways. Timothy was willing to put up with people who kept attacking his barriers- partially because he didn’t take them seriously- but there were limits. If he explained things to them and they still remained stubborn… they wouldn’t last very long anyway.

Only a few groups were stupid enough to ignore a Domination cultivator.

-----Nôv(el)B\\jnn

Closer to the frontlines were more ships packed with refugees. Most were cultivators or others with some amount of wealth, at least relatively. And as these ships seemed to have left later, they were truly packed. Sometimes people didn’t even have room to move. They could be crushed to death, or die of thirst. Starvation took longer.

Timothy himself could do very little about those situations. He couldn’t expand the size of the ships to provide more room, room which likely should be used to pack in even more people. Traditionally, most ships were smaller- meant for hundreds of passengers at most. It would take more ships than anywhere had to even get close to fully evacuation a planet.

This was where Timothy first spotted others with ill intent. Certainly, there were some captains who were likely taking advantage of people’s desperation to overcharge them further out, but in particular he was referring to those with direct intent. Slavers and bandits, anyone who wished to take advantaged of tight packed group of people for either the people themselves or for what they carried on them- which would be all the wealth they could possibly carry. Even if that wealth wasn’t on the people themselves but in the ship’s hold, paid as passage, it was tempting.

A ship was under attack as he arrived, and he immediately put a stop to that, forming a defensive barrier over the poorly defended civilian ship. Even if they had cultivators aboard, they weren’t necessarily armed in a way they could effectively fight back in space.

Timothy landed on the attacking ship. To get there he did have to slice through their defensive barrier, but that didn’t take much effort at all. He could have easily done it as an Augmentation cultivator. Even if he was specialized in defensive techniques, his offensive strength greatly increased in Domination.

Some ‘brave’ souls attacked Timothy as he landed. He formed a barrier around him in all directions, absorbing the incoming attacks and reflecting them. A dozen cultivators were immediately wounded.

“You have ten seconds to give a good explanation for why you are attacking this ship,” Timothy said, holding his sword at the throat of the captain- an older woman.

“Seems like you’ve already decided which side is righteous and which is not,” the woman spat.

“I’m at least willing to give you a chance,” Timothy said, turning his head to survey the ship. His point every so slightly wavered from its position. On purpose, of course- there was no way his body would lose control so easily even for such minor things.

It was just an excuse for the woman to try to attack him when his back was turned, an opportunity she didn’t miss. She drew a dagger and struck Timothy’s neck. Her blade shattered. Apparently she hadn’t been able to sense Timothy’s layered energy under his general aura- though he could have easily formed such a barrier in an instant either way.

Timothy scanned the rest of the ship with his insight. The vessel wasn’t particularly large, but it could still put it to use. It was only a question of whether any of the crew aboard deserved another chance.

-----

Velvet hadn’t been on a rescue mission in ages. This one was a bit more difficult, as she was going deep into enemy territory. Well, occupied territory. This was closer to belonging to the Alliance than anyone else. But now the two great powers were making a mess of things, and the locals were losing out.

Poetic justice said Velvet should steal some of their warships to transport people off planet. Practicality said that she was going to have to find whatever was available and fit as many people as possible. They would be monitoring ships going in and out of the system, and while they might let some smaller ships flee they certainly wouldn’t let stolen ships get away, on either side.

Velvet wasn’t the only one. It would have been kind of a waste for her to go somewhere and save what, a couple hundred people over the course of a week or two? Quantity wasn’t the only factor, but it was certainly a large one.

There wouldn’t be enough ships, but if they could sneak ships out they could also sneak them back in. Hopefully, it would be fast enough.

Velvet was surprised that some sects that had ships hadn’t made their way off planet. They likely didn’t have sufficient numbers to bring everyone, but they sure were risking a lot. Either side would happily take over their sects and take everything they had, and they simply hadn’t gotten around to it yet.

That was because they were currently killing each other. Quite blatantly, in fact. Fortunately, it was mainly the Twirling Forest and the Ponderous Turtle Clan here. Nobody taking bites out of the planet like would happen if the Disciples of the Beyond were present.

Yet battles between Augmentation cultivators could cause aftershocks that made a whole country tremble, and if a battle was particularly poorly placed could have wide ranging ecological consequences into the future. Though Velvet didn’t care what was going to happen to the planet in a few years as much as she was the immediate future.

Choosing who to tell was difficult. Was it an unreasonable bias to mainly pick out the young and the healthy? Was it unfair? They would have the greatest chances of survival if things were tough. Plus, kids.

Whatever, others could make their own judgments if they wanted to. Obviously Velvet would be taking whole families where she could. Though she had to make quick decisions. If she told the wrong people, the ships she knew about could easily be swarmed by crowds and draw the wrong sort of attention.

Speaking of ships, some of them would be stolen. Just not from the Exalted Quadrant or Trigold Cluster. Not yet, anyway. Personally, Velvet thought that anyone staying around this long was in for trouble anyway.

Along with routes out, Velvet and the others would be making plans to smuggle ships into the systems. Unfortunately they couldn’t use the largest vessels because even Velvet couldn’t keep one of those hidden from the eyes of two fleets. But at the very least they could use whatever was local to shuttle people back and forth, saving some of the population. And indirectly choosing who would die.

Too bad it wouldn’t be either of the aggressors. Though, maybe one or two important individuals might mysteriously go missing or even more mysteriously wind up dead. Velvet had to determine if that would cause the war to heat up in a problematic way or not.