[MA] 72. True Enemy (Patreon)

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[A/N: I almost didn't manage to write 2 chapters. I lost 400 words to a power outage and it put me even further behind schedule than the headache and dizziness.

I already changed the app I use to write (it was MS Word, it's now G-Docs), and it auto-saves, so don't worry about that happening again.

On a more positive note, copy pasting from this program doesn't cause double spaces here on Patreon.]

Three naked B-rank drow were lying diagonally, their backs to each other, like a kind of pyramid. They rested on an open capsule of metal and crystal, tubes coming from their heads and veins entering the small room's floor. The Bloody Mists left out of their bodies like steam.

The Seat of Power fed on the Autarchs as much as it strengthened them.

The room at the planetary core was made of simple magic metal reinforced to resist and isolate the heat. There was no need to make it more resistant to protect the Autarchs. Other defenses made it such that the world had to be blown for the core to be destroyed, and if the enemy did that, it wouldn't matter whether the Autharchs lived or not. The drow could simply pick new B-ranks for the job wherever they escaped to.

Liya was kneeling in front of them. "...and as such, I demand a war against the orcs," she finished her report.

"We sacrificed so much..." one Autarch said.

"...to protect ourselves..." another continued.

"...yet you bring more death to us," the third concluded.

Their voices were slow and whispery. Being an Autarch was not easy, but it had to be done. It was also a death sentence, as Autarchs lived no longer than a hundred years.

All drow knew they would die like that if they reached B-rank and lived long enough. Liya was no different.

"Our sacrifices were required because of repeated deception from our supposed allies," Liya insisted. "We learned that forgiving and forgetting is worse in the long run. We learned that the cost of immediate war is shorter than letting our enemies plot comfortably."

"We did learn it all..."

"...yet we're tired..."

"...so very tired."

"So many deaths..."

"...so much suffering..."

"...the Bloody Mists never stop growing..."

"...and it saddens us."

Liya felt her heart clenching. The will of the Autarchs was one with the Bloody Mists created using the recovered souls of the departed. The Mists had been initially developed in the hopes that one day the drow would have enough resources to build everyone a new body. Now, it had become the voice of the past, the collective will of their fallen warriors, the amalgamation of their expectations.

"It saddens me too," Liya replied truthfully. "Yet we have learned to fight through our sadness too."

"That is true," all three said at once. Then one of them continued.

"We have been contacted..."

"...by the Tribe of Sharyan."

"They wanted to offer..."

"...an alliance..."

"...against the Dreamer."

Liya was dumbfounded. The high elves had offered an alliance? "What?! How? Why? When?"

"We don't know..."

"...the specifics..."

"...but they were attacked..."

"...and resented it."

"We accepted their offer."

"You shall have your war..."

"...against the orcs..."

"...but it shall have to wait..."

"...until we're done with..."

"...the True Enemy."

Then all three concluded. "We march toward the Dreamer at dawn."

They finally had a shot at destroying the one who had started the spiral of doom that affected the drow to this day! It might be a trap, but if the Autarchs had accepted the alliance, it had to at least give them a chance at fulfilling that goal.

Liya completely forgot everything about the orc for now.

This was too big to think of anything else.

"But how?" Liya asked. "The Dreamer will see us coming! That's the reason we haven't killed him yet!"

The True Enemy's dreams didn't work perfectly against singular B-ranks, but it worked well enough when a few were involved, and the drow needed to move a lot of them to kill the Dreamer. Their enemy was at the peak of the B-rank, and such beings were hard to kill.

"The Tribe of Sharyl..."

"...will not break Alliance Law..."

"...to help us..."

"...but they will..."

"...veil us..."

"...from the True Enemy's dreams."

Liya was impressed at the high elves' commitment to this. Only an A-rank could completely hide an entire world from the Dreamer, and though it wasn't against the law, they would face a backlash for doing this.

What had spurred them into action?

She didn't know, and to be honest, she didn't care. Only the True Enemy's death mattered.

The next day at dawn, Shar'Talon was teleported to the next universe. They would remain there until their B-ranks with mastery over Space Laws recovered their power to teleport them again.

Only three jumps remained until they reached the Primordial Universe, then one more to arrive at the Milky Way Galaxy, where the Pioneer Tutorial was taking place.

It shouldn't take more than a few months for them to feast on the corpse of their foe at long last.

= - = - =

It looked like Shen and the others had been teleported back to the first stage. He was alone on a floating island beside many other islands. His spoils of war had been teleported to his side.

However, he noticed one of his neighboring islands was five times as large as his, and it had ten people instead of one. Those should be people who had come to the fourth stage in a group. The other islands close to him all had one person only.

Unfortunately, Alicia was nowhere to be seen.

=

Tutorial - 4th Stage

In the first three stages, you learned to fight in common battles. In the next three, you'll learn to fight in more conceptual ways.

Long ago, after getting access to mana, the Multiverse Alliance grew in size and wisdom. It learned the worth of average beings that take care of everyday matters. It also learned that such people should not fight in the front lines.

The Alliance's caste system is simple: you're either a Guardian, or you aren't. Being a Guardian brings privileges and responsibilities both. Fighting the Void is both a privilege and a responsibility.

To keep our Guardians pushing forward, they all must reach the E-rank within one year of becoming one.

They all must reach D-rank within one hundred years.

They all must reach C-rank within a thousand years.

And they all must reach B-rank within ten thousand years.

The Alliance offers no official way of extending one's life. Whether a race can live that long or develop a way to do so depends on them. Many organizations dabble in life extension tech, so humanity need not worry much about it.

Your conceptual fight in this stage will be to reach the E-rank by the end of it. To do that, you'll have to touch the mystical special knowledge required to do so.

We give one tip: focus on the uniqueness that make you strong.

You have two weeks.

=

No countdown appeared this time, so Shen guessed they were back to the old ways of checking the remaining time with a verbal command.

The Emperor had told him mana had hidden pitfalls, and the message made Shen aware of one. Cultivating qi extended one's lifespan. As a Fate Origin realm cultivator, his life expectancy was five hundred years. That was more than enough to reach the D-rank. Though it fell short of the C-rank, it was still much better than those using mana.

=

Tutorial - 4th Stage

Some of you will notice there's still a cost to rank up. The fee was not waived, and it shall not be.

If you came alone and don't have the required AP, you'll be eliminated at the end of the stage regardless of what you accomplish.

That might seem unfair, but you're training to become a Guardian. Without the proper preparations, you'll find yourself unable to advance, no matter how hard you try. It's unfortunate, but it's also one of the things this tutorial aims to teach.

=

That sounded harsh, but the reasoning was valid. Sometimes things just weren't meant to be. Shen had felt that frustration many times over as he grew up with crippled meridians and never found a solution.

He wasn't crippled anymore, but that wasn't his merit.

Shen wondered whether Alicia had enough points before reading the next message.

=

Tutorial - 4th Stage

If you came in a group and don't have the required AP, you can ask your teammates for it. One of the advantages of advancing together is that one can cover for another's shortcomings.

Only five people in each group need to reach the E-rank for you to pass.

If less than five make it to the end of the stage, the entire group will be expelled. One of the disadvantages of depending on others is that they sometimes fall short of expectations.

This is the only circumstance in the entirety of the multiverse in which direct AP transfer is allowed.

You will not be able to take back any AP you gift at this stage.

=

That was interesting. Even when moving as a group, some people would still distinguish themselves while others fell behind.

If Shen had to guess, based on everything he had learned of the Alliance until now, it wanted elites and elite candidates too. The candidates were already being created among the regular Guardians.

Anyway, Shen found himself without a challenge to overcome, much to his disappointment. He had improved so much in his meditation, yet the third stage's final battle had been so easy. He had hoped for stronger foes at this stage.

He had also hoped for a way of getting more AP. It seemed his decision to focus on AP in the last stage had been the correct one.

Well, there was still the unmentioned middle and final boss. Maybe they would bring something interesting to the table.

The good news was that he would conclude his overdue cultivation in a few days and be fully synced with the Fare Origin realm. Then, he would start working on cultivating forward once again.

So Shen cultivated and trained his forms, applying everything from his meditations to his martial arts.

= - = - =

Alicia sat, summoned a fireball, and stared at it.

Multiple times she had gotten better at magic by doing precisely this. Now, she hoped it would let her bridge the gap she had felt in the fight.

She felt the fireball's heat, watched its light, paid attention to the distorted image right around the flame, and noticed how it was stable, yet her mere breath could make it fickle.

Time passed.

= - = - =

Evelyn's group was as good as in the next stage already. Four of them were at the E-rank, and the others weren't bad.

What surprised her was the talk of living for thousands of years. For alien tech to make that possible was no surprise, but it was something else to read it directly.

Humankind had pursued immortality for long enough to have multiple tales about it. Gods, philosopher stone, future tech. Now, it was at their reach.

She both loved and hated it. She loved that her family might find a way to live forever. She hated that some people she knew might do the same.

How would a society ruled by ancient and powerful people even work?

She had no answer for that, but she knew she wouldn't let them screw Earth. And for that, she needed power.

So she focused on improving her gravity as best as she could under the circumstances.

= - = - =

Shen was sitting on the floor, cultivating.

He moved his Qi in the appropriate pattern when he suddenly felt his entire body reach a strange kind of balance. It became what it should have been. It felt like he had been carrying a weight that was lifted.

All his muscles relaxed, and his very soul felt lighter. His core's walls hardened a little, and the runes grew stronger. His body went through a minor but noticeable qualitative change.

He was finally as good as any other Fate Origin realm cultivator who hadn't messed up like him.

The Fate Origin realm had three steps to be taken in parallel: Qi Saturation, Concept Mastering, and Path Definition.

Qi Saturation aimed to make his body capable of holding unlimited qi for an unlimited amount of time rather than the... Shen checked his body. Rather than the couple hours he currently could. Reaching that might seem like a tall order, but there was supposedly a threshold between a certain number of days and unlimited time. He didn't know how many days exactly, but he knew it was there, and it was reachable.

Concept Mastering was to master a Concept, simple as that. You could never truly understand everything a Concept represented, not at the Fate Origin realm. However, by understanding enough of it, you could be said to have mastered it, at least for cultivation purposes.

Finally, Path Definition was the most crucial step. Once he finished defining his Path, it would be set. When he stepped at the Ethereal Harmonization realm, he wouldn't be able to change his Path at all unless he gave up on his cultivation to come back to the Fate Origin realm. That was the main reason his current realm was called the Fate Origin realm.

Shen felt he was doing well with his Path. It lacked maybe one or two Concepts, and it would be set.

He lacked understanding of his Concepts, though he had advanced considerably thanks to the E-tier learning ability upgrade.

As for his body, it was a very, very long distance from being capable of withstanding qi for an unlimited amount of time.

Well, he had nothing better to do, so he started working on those things.

= - = - =

Alicia stared at the flames. She had been doing so for days without end.

Suddenly, something changed.

Suddenly, she got a glimpse of true Fire.

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