Savage Awakening 553. Making Progress (I)

Hopefully not, if he could avoid it. Though it did seem the kind of thing Noughtfire would put him up to. The old guy would get a kick out of it.

Zane kind of expected this Kain to be surprised, or at least more on guard, after he found out about his time-traveler status.

But the man looked relieved, if anything. 

“Then you must be here simply for the Starfield.”

“I’ve said that a bunch of times.” 

“I should explain that I have a certain reputation here,” said Kain. “I’ve been studying in this starfield for the past 400 years. Not a tremendously long time in the grand scheme. But it’s long enough to have made a lengthy list of enemies.”

He nodded down to the valley below. “Stay here long enough, and you’ll find everyone wants something from you. They’ll wish to ally with you. They’ll wish to extract knowledge from you. They’ll wish to take your territory, or they’ll simply wish to humiliate you because you won’t bow down. I’ve lost count of the number of Young Masters I’ve had to fight off simply because I’ve refused to offer them face.”

Zane supposed that did make sense. He’d had to slap down a lot of Young Masters in his time, and he’d acted fairly reasonably, in his view, most of the time. He wasn’t surprised this Kain had a lot of enemies.

Then again, with how the man acted, he could almost sympathize with the Young Masters. Which was a thought he’d never thought he’d have, honestly. 

“Then my prowess in scrying and astronomy became widely known,” Kain continued. “That I could always predict when and where the densest shard meteor showers would land. That I always seemed to know who was coming and how strong they were. Just which regions would suffer shard Bosses, and so forth.”

“Shard bosses?”

Kain waved absentmindedly. “You’ll meet them as the season deepens. They always accompany the largest Shard caches.”

Zane nodded.

“You can imagine, then, what I’ve had to deal with,” Kain continued. “If it isn’t to harangue me, it’s to get in my good graces. In truth, I have no use for other men. I work perfectly fine alone… but I have not met a single man willing to grant me that.”

He eyed Zane critically. “But if you truly are a time-traveler you would have no use for any of that either.” 

“No.” 

“Then perhaps this arrangement may be fine.”

It stopped short of an apology. But Zane couldn’t really be bothered at this point. It was something, at least.

He did kind of get it. He tended to like doing his own thing most of the time. 

“Make no mistake—” said Kain.

“It still doesn’t mean you want to be friends. Just that you don’t think I’m here to wring shards out of you anymore, or something.”

“…” 

“You know,” said Zane. “Maybe it’d help with making fewer enemies if you were a bit less prickly. I still kind of want to give you a wedgie.”

Kain frowned. “Wedgie?” 

“…Let’s just clear this thing.”

“I’ll take three today,” said Kain. “I was late. It’s only fair.”

“Alright.”

Zane actually liked clearing the boss Astroliths. But he appreciated the gesture, at least.

Afterward, they headed off to do their own thing.

Noughtfire had told him to make friends with ‘locals,’ whoever they were, to speed up the insight process. But he felt he was making pretty good progress already on Law. He might be ahead of the curve, even—he’d talk to this guy if he had to, but for now he didn’t see the need. 

And there was no guarantee this Kain was even the right time traveler. He was under the impression there could be more than one.

…He was pretty sure it was this Kain. Just a gut feeling. There was no other fellow on this mountain. Though maybe someone else would come along, who knew. 

That day turned out to be another productive day. He made more solid progress on his Starfire-as-light insights.

***

Soon a week had passed, and things settled into a steady rhythm. Doing the ‘chores’ of cleaning the field in the morning, working through the peak hours of Law, then digesting that Law, working his auxiliary Skills, and getting some entertainment spectating the valley below deep into the night. Most of the time he hardly spoke a word to Kain, which suited them both just fine. 

He’d finished up his survey of Starfire’s properties late in the week. The last aspect had to do with how well Starfire took to Destruction. The stuff in the crystals was shot through with at least a plate’s worth of Destruction, likely more. Some of the Starfire even held Creation plates.

He was realizing it came down to the very nature of Starfire, just how instrumental it was as a building block of the universe. This stuff burned with the Destruction and Creation that made the very stars. It was the base from which everything burned into being. It was what made the Pure Yang land so rare.

Sometimes at night, as he romped around the mountain, he’d seek deep into the cracks in the ground. And if he felt long enough he’d feel a faint resonance down there too. The only other place he could find Starfire of the same grade as the starfield. Deep in the ground, where the crucible of the stars lay.

In practical terms, it meant this Starfire would give a boost to his Destruction too. It’d be like providing a better fuel for the spark—stacked with its explosive aspects, it ought to give a pretty substantial boost to his firepower. It was hard to quantify just how much from this vantage. But he’d guess at least four or five times, conservatively. 

That, combined with the speed-boost he’d get, would make a pretty massive difference.

If he mastered these Slashes too he felt he should be able to challenge T1 Empyreans. 

Something else that was nice about studying in this starfield—his Law path was always a little harder than most since he was learning the ‘Heavenly’ version of these Concepts, a version that came pre-loaded with Destruction. It’d been the case ever since he’d gotten his Heavenly Stormfire way back during his Ascendant tribulation. Usually he’d see non-Heavenly Concepts, then try to replicate them with his own essence, making a Destruction-laced version of it. It always ended up taking a little longer since it felt like making a slightly modified—but much harder—version of the thing he was seeing.

The Starfire he was studying in these crystals was already the ‘Heavenly’ version. It just made the learning easier.

After that first week, he decided to focus on the speed-aspects of Starfire first. Just by getting a feel for the core mechanisms of it and lacing his Red Giant with it, he was already noticing a difference. His flames burned a little brighter and shot forward about 5% faster when he threw straight-line shots. It was a hefty amount for just the first week, but that was normal—these were ‘newbie gains;’ the easiest, most impactful, most obvious gains would always be made at the start. It’d slow a bit as he went. But he was pleased to already be seeing benefits.

He was seeing bigger gains on the Star-crushing Slashes front. He was pretty sure it wouldn’t be long before he unlocked that 3-slash chain. Then it’d be the strongest of his direct damage-dealing attacks by far. 

The only drawback was that Star-crushing Slashes was quite energy-intensive. For extended horde-clearing, or against waves that lasted hours or days, his hammers were still his most efficient option. Still, he’d probably default to using it over hammer smashes in most cases. Chainstorm Cage he could still see being quite useful as a finishing move against bosses. 

He also collected another 2 Destruction shards, which meant his total Destruction stash was up to 4.

One night before he left, he noticed Kain heading over. The man pointed at the fissure at his feet.

“Do you feel the unrest down there?”

“Yeah, what’s up?” 

“There will be a firestorm tonight,” said Kain. “The restless mantle beneath flings millions of embers to the surface, which then tear across the Pure Yang lands. It happens every few months… and it’ll be the most brutal here on the starfield, where the Starfire Laws lay thickest. Normal shielding mechanisms won’t stand up to this. Even Empyreans may risk their lives without the right protections.”

“Thanks for the heads-up,” said Zane, who was still kind of wondering what Kain was up to here. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

Kain paused. “I assume your equipment, like your disguise runes, is of adequate make.”

“They should be.” Reina had that thing specially made. She’d shipped it off to the Steelheart folks to do the final runework on it. The elves were no slouches when it came to runes, but all the best rune work in the galaxy went through the Conclave.

“Very well, then.” Kain left.

Zane considered him as he went. That was… kind of nice of the guy, actually. 

Then he shrugged and left too.

***

Another month passed. Night had fallen over Mount X.

On one of the most Monster-dense areas of the mountain, a meteor-strewn region known only as the ‘Boulder Field,’ slashes lit up the night.

First a single angry red slash. Then another, crossing it into an X—twice as big.

Then a third, twice as big as the one before, so vast it gouged a scar that went a solid quarter-mile. So big that many of the camps at ground level, seeing it, thought it was a natural disaster.

Two cannon-laden Astroliths groaned and collapsed to ash.

There stood Zane, body burning so hot it steamed the air even in this atmosphere. He was breathing heavily, clearly exhausted, but grinning.

A notification lit up his vision.

Skill up!

Star-crushing Slashes II -> III

He’d achieved the third Slash.