"You have all done well. Walk with me," Xenanra said.
The Ascendant rose from where she floated and drifted down, leaving the fire they had circled still burning, and the cushions and rugs where they had lain.
Kaius shared a look with his team. He hadn’t expected them to change locations — they had only just managed to master utilising their Authority to consistently flare their Aspects at will.
It had been a gruelling process, and a lengthy one — two days and two nights of constant effort. None of them had slept a wink. There had been only the fire, the smell of medicinal tea, and the discomfort of Xenanra’s authority prodding them endlessly until they mastered the skill for themselves.
It had taken time not just because the process was unfamiliar, but also the subtlety and care it required. Authority, it turned out, was not a brute’s cudgel. There was an art to it, one that Kaius was only just brushing up against.
Thank the gods that each of them had more than enough Vitality to stay bright and alert that entire time.
Regardless of the discomfort, it was still a challenge that he had enjoyed. There was a viscerality to it, much like embodiment — it felt like he was becoming more of himself as he flared his Aspects higher; pressed upon them with the authority they themselves had granted him.
To his surprise, Porkchop was the first of them to master it — though only by a hair. Kaius would have thought the limitations of insight that greater beasts faced would have put him at enough of a disadvantage that he would be amongst the slowest of their number.
But from what Xenanra had said, not only had the Soul Soap he’d consumed granted him a scaling bonus that would persist with him through the tiers, it had also immediately freed up a little conceptual flexibility within him. The Ascendant had insisted that a large part of it was simply his brother’s brute stubbornness and endless curiosity for how the process worked.
Ianmus had been close on his tail — only minutes behind. As much as it irked Kaius to not even be in the first half of their team, it was no surprise. Ianmus was their dedicated mage; he’d been a maestro at infusing his intent into energy the entire time they had travelled together. Many of those skills, it seemed, were transferable and had aided him in seizing the ability to flare his aspects at will.
Thankfully, it hadn’t taken Kaius much longer — barely half an hour more. His insights largely stemmed from his practice with VOS — traditional runework made little use of intent. Admittedly, conceptual magic was still new and raw to him, considering the difficulty he had practising that ability.
Kenva had been last, a few hours after him. She’d had the least practice of all of them in consistent channelling and fine manipulation of energy. Sure, she had her charged Skill Horizon’s Lance
, but that was more about packing as much power as possible into a single skill, not delicate control.Still, the fact that they were all evenly matched enough to achieve this within a quarter day spoke volumes. Kaius suspected that Xenanra had tuned her guidance to the utmost, and much of their success was down to her mastery of teaching rather than any personal ability on their parts.
She gave them a bare hour to catch their breaths and consume a quick meal of trail rations stored in their rings, before she rose into the air — waving at them to follow as she set off.
Giving his team a reassuring nod, Kaius scrambled to his feet, hurrying to keep pace with the god drifting ahead of them.
"This place was much different once, you know," she said, looking around at the cracked stone and weathered arches of the sacred space where they had trained. "It is — or was — something of a home to me, many aeons ago. How it looks before you now, I last saw on a visit long ago, but not as long ago as when I was a girl. I was saddened to see time had eaten history so thoroughly… but such is the way of Ascendancy. Worlds ground to dust by time until the only remnants are those in your memory."
Her words were distant, dripping with the weight of ages and a thousand lessons learned. She looked around her slowly, settling on stone paths and a dozen patches of plantlife that Kaius struggled to differentiate from any other.
"What was it, once?" Ianmus asked respectfully.
"It was beautiful. The walls and stone were painted. Hundreds of petitioners journeyed here each day. In the wet season, the warm shelters of this jungle were where the young learned and were taught in the ways I have taught you.
"I recreate this rite in honour of those who set me on my path — and to maintain traditions that I alone still remember."
"It is an honour," Kenva said. "Amongst the Hiwiann people, stories are how we cement our bonds of friendship and alliance. We would not persist as a unified bloc if we forgot our shared history. I thank you — both for the teaching and for this gift of history."
Xenanra looked back and gave them a simple smile. "Truly, the pleasure is mine. The tradition of education I guide you under cannot exist without somebody to receive it."
"Where do we go now?" Porkchop asked as they exited the shadowed temple and out a jungle thick with life. The sun shone down bright, and the air heavy with the remnant fortitude of natural essence Xenanra had pushed back once more.
She waved their path forward, The jungle flicked like a candle in the face of typhoon winds — a rolling wave that rushed over it, opening a path within its reaches.
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"We go onwards. We are in the middle of the Temple Grounds, a complex that once stretched hundreds of leagues in every direction."
Kaius gaped at her, struggling to imagine it. There was no evidence of roads, buildings, or even overgrown foundations — only fragments of rubble, scratched writing in stone, and a lonely old building in the jungle.
She nodded. "Yes. The Hall of Flame we were just in is where the acolytes were guided. At least, once they had reached maturity and proven their ability to stimulate their aspects. The grounds, after so many years, are rich in essence, and the Hall was stout and strong enough to resist the scouring weight of years.”
Kaius could almost see it — dozens of people as young as they were, clustered around a fire as essence battered them in crushing waves.
"There was one other place — the cloister — where monks and truthseekers pursued wisdom and strength. Those who had proven themselves ready and able in the eyes of the System could enter the Sanctum, where cycling was taught and practised."
Xenanra set off without another word, and Kaius hurried after her, eager to see what forgotten fragment of the past remained ahead of them.
….
They stood at the lip of an unnatural depression, an artificial caldera carved straight into the bedrock.
At its base stood an immense, steepled temple. It was an alien thing, built in the shape of a cross, with a raised centre of gracefully sloping roofs that drooped toward the points, only to suddenly flick back in — like the limbs of a recurve bow.
There were stairs leading down the edge of the slope. The walls of the depression— once solid barriers of pitch-black stone — had been humbled by time; pulverised by wind and rain. Sediment had accumulated, gravel had formed, and grasses had grown. Only the steps— monolithic and long, curving their way around the caldera’s edge — remained as remnants of what it must once have been.
The essence that had preserved them had extended into the bedrock, leaving a raised ridge of craggy, sharp spikes that rose above the soft green below. The temple below was also relatively untouched.
It was clearly aged, with weather-beaten engravings, and artistic spires and spikes that were ground down into nubs. But the structure was strong, its walls sturdy, despite the mounds of earth that had piled up around its edges.
Regardless, given a few aeons, its hardiness in the face of wear would not be enough — it would be buried, becoming little more than a hill.
If Xenanra allowed it, of course.
The Ascendant hovered at the start of the stairs that wound down, a faint smile on her face as she seemed to remember the days when the black stone gleamed in the sun, and fires roared in its now-black windows during the night.
She waved them forward. Kaius fell in close as they began their descent. It was a trek of hours — easy for their hardened bodies, and not boring for the fascinating sight of the ancient ruin below them.
Reaching the base, the path flowed between two spoked wings of the cathedral’s outer space. On its terminal approach, the path widened to nearly a hundred strides across as it flowed towards the cracked remnants of a burnished silver door, a full stride thick. It was eye catching — sculpted with an immense blooming flower erupting from its base to tower quadruple Kaius’s height overhead.
Already cracked and ajar, Xenanra led them straight in.
Kaius expected a grand entry hall to await them. Perhaps leading into a foyer, with curving stairs to higher levels, and hundreds of rooms for hundreds of monks, with meeting halls, meditation chambers, kitchens, and refectories alike.
Instead, the entire complex was hollow, lit from above by pulsing ward lights that hammered them with a hypnotic rhythm. The pulse lulled him into a state of relaxation despite his dedication to staying aware of their surroundings.
Overhead, the ceiling above rose gradually as it approached the centre of the great crossed building, where a raised platform stood.
As they walked through ancient and hallowed halls, they fell into a solemn silence. Though long fallen into decrepit disuse, the very walls still breathed holiness. There was a weight of expectation within them, like the very world was holding its breath.
Entering the central chamber, they were greeted by the same bloom that had been emblazoned on the silver doors. Engravings stretched up the walls; twined around colossal pillars that supported the roof far above. They were lit by yet more pulsing ward lights, growing in intensity in a smooth gradient toward a peak at the highest point — blinding in its intensity.
Through his Truesight, he saw no sign of inscriptions powering the light. There was only a radiating sensation of zeal and focus. As he looked upon that point, his Pillars, Aspects, and Authority tensed in anticipation.
Xenanra led them forward and up onto the raised dais, until they stood directly beneath the point of maximum intensity.
With a wave of her hand, A circular rug appeared and unfurled — scarlet, with looping geometric patterns in brilliant green, that swirled inward in a way that sucked at his vision. It seemed almost infinite in its depths.
With another wave, five square cushions appeared at equidistant points around the rug. One was much larger and floated slightly — Xenanra’s. She took her seat and gestured for them to join her.
They did so silently, eager to continue their lesson.
“Welcome to the Sanctum where I once learned Cycling — or a recreation of it, at least.” Xenanra said, smiling.
“Now,” Xenanra continued, “we have reached the point where you can generate essence without external pressure — but that is not cycling. Under normal circumstances, without the assistance of environmental essence, your aspects will flare and generation will begin in times of great stress — similar to those that helped you to ignite and embody your pillars in the first place.
“In the second tier, at the step of Refinement, your triumvirate instinctively draws on that available essence to strengthen itself, refining your truth and authority.”
Kaius felt his mouth go dry. He hoped — dared to hope — that this lesson would come with an inclination of what they must do next. Every part of him tuned in, listening with his full focus.
“The aspects are a triumvirate and create a cycle. Through essence, will, and authority, I will teach you how to forge a wheel. With your conscious self as the centre, the soul as the spokes, and the body and mind as the arc. Your spark of essence will move from outwards to in — body to mind, to soul, to finally diffuse through everything — the self. Then the spark is released, and the cycle begins anew.”
As Xenanra spoke, the very world quavered with the force of her authority.
“This will require focus and quiet contemplation at first. But by the time your Refinement begins in truth, it will be automatic — something you can do in stillness, or in the background, to make use of those natural moments when your whole existence comes into tune during the heat of strife.”
Xenanra clapped—a sharp sound that cut through the heavy tension in the air, banishing the almost crushing weight that rested on Kaius’s shoulders.
To his shock, she drifted down to settle solidly on the carpet, no longer floating. As she sat across from them, she seemed almost mortal. A kindly smile of simple joy was on her face.
“Now,” she said, “let me guide you one final time.”