B3 Chapter 391: A Cycle; an End, Pt. 4

“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.

….