A moment later, Kiro realized that he had hugged an all-powerful Immortal while covered in filth.

“Ah — um, I apologise profusely, honored Saint!” He jerked back, bowing low and hoping that the woman wouldn’t vaporize him. “Please excuse my blatant disrespect of your status. I shame you with my mere presence.”

“What? No, Kiro, you’re fine! A little dirt isn't going to hurt me.”

"W-what?" He was certain that the remains of his advancement hadn't just been dirt, but he straightened, looking back at the woman.

She waved him off. "I'm just glad you're enjoying your mana! How does it feel?"

"Incredible. I... I never thought I'd be able to do this." He pushed mana through his hand in the same motions as before, and another puff of fire flashed out. "It feels so much smoother than I expected."

She gave him a wink. "That's the power of a good channeling technique. Next, we'll have to work on your body's physical motions during your attacks."

Seira tacked him in a hug, and he fell over, laughing. "I thought that I was too much of a mess to hug?"

"Well, if the Saint is fine with it, so am I. Plus, you just used mana for the first time! That deserves a celebration more than anything. Though..." She rolled off him, glancing behind them. "I feel like we could all use a bath right now."

Rynn was still lying on the grass in a filthy heap, eyes closed and chest steadily rising and falling with his breaths.

"Did he also pass out?"

Aer waved a hand, lifting the unconscious man into the air. "Yes, but not like you did. He wanted to try and withstand the pressures of the void by himself, and he ended up pushing himself too far. As for baths..."

She motioned to their surroundings, and for the first time Kiro took a good look around them. They were surrounded by plains, a sea of lush grass disturbed only by the occasional tree or hill. And not a drop of water in sight.

"Honored Saint, will we be staying here?"

"Yep, but I'm not one to make you guys stay out in the cold for no reason. You'll already be training plenty hard during the days, so the last thing I need is even more stress being placed on you at nights."

Seira looked at her with a skeptical glance, and the Saint continued. "That isn't to say that life will always be this comfortable, of course. Once your bodies have adapted, you'll be able to put them in a variety of different conditions to train in. But for now... I think a bath is certainly in order."

She waved her hand again, and the ground rumbled, erecting a series of tents made of smooth grey stone. Then, with another wave, a basin appeared, instantly filling with steaming water. A gust of wind plopped Rynn down into one of the tents, and Aer tossed Kiro a bar of soap.

He stared at her, eyes wide. "H-honored Saint..."

She frowned. "Huh? Oh, apologies. Are you body-shy? Here, I'll turn around while you get in."

"I thought your aspect was wind."

"Oh! It is." She conjured another tent, but this time she did it slowly enough that he could see the stone gradually forming under the air. "This isn't actually me manipulating stone, but rather something more like erosion, just twisted to fit my purposes. I do sort of the same thing when I manipulate your mana, though that's easier because of fire's close relationship with lightning."

Seira looked at her, shocked. "The Elders never taught us that that could happen! I always thought that I'd be stuck manipulating fire forever..."

Aer grimaced. "Of course they'd say that. Well, that statement is wrong for a variety of reasons. Even if you decided to stick with fire, you'll eventually be able to exert control over adjacent aspects like heat or light. Of course, to do the same over an aspect that's almost the polar opposite of yours takes a lot more ingenuity, as well as power."

Rynn suddenly sat up, gasping. "Honored Saint, teach me how to acquire such power. I was too weak to withstand the void's currents."

"... did you just wake up?" Seira inched away from him, holding in a giggle.

He glared at her. "I don't have time for this folly! Mai is still back there, at the mercy of the matriarch! I need to get stronger now."

The Saint sighed, and a couple logs floated over, embedding themselves in the ground. "Well, I was going to tell this story anyways. Come sit down, my disciples."

They gathered around her, and she shielded her eyes, looking into the sunset.

"Rynn, the good news is that becoming as strong as me is a very straightforward path. As you might have seen when we were in the void, there are a lot of worlds to ascend to. Well, as you climb ‘higher’ in these worlds, they generally get stronger. So as you get stronger, you can ascend, which makes it easier to get stronger, which allows you to ascend again, and again, and again.”

“It's like the universe was made for progression, and every ascension is another step towards the peak. It’s not just the inhabitants that get stronger, either. You wouldn’t have an easier time advancing if that was the case.”

Aer gestured around them, flaring her aura.

“The mana itself gets more dense, meaning you'll be able to cultivate to levels of power that would’ve been unimaginable in lower worlds. ”

Seeing the looks of wonder on their faces, Aer shook her head.

“Don’t get your hopes up too much. The void between worlds ‘flows’ up, meaning that it’s many times easier to ascend than descend. Now, this might seem good at first, but think about it for a second. You want to be powerful among your peers, so you ascend, and climb the ranks. However, because everyone else on this new world is equally powerful, you aren’t. And you can’t descend, because you’re not strong enough, so you ascend again…”

Kiro nodded. You would be stuck at the same level of relative power forever. Aer smiled, seeing that they had figured it out.

“This is the climber’s dilemma, and scholars all across the cluster have spent their lives contemplating it. If you don’t have the talent, you’re essentially not moving at all, wasting all this time and effort for an unachievable goal. It’s also why you hardly see anyone descend. If you do have the talent, why bother going down? You’re already incredibly powerful, and if you wanted to be nearly immeasurable compared to your home world, you would ascend a couple more times before descending.”

The Saint tilted her head, absentmindedly blowing a tree back and forth with flicks of her finger.

“That’s not to say that there aren’t benefits to advancement. As you grow stronger, your lifespan increases, and you get access to unique abilities lower stages don’t have. However, you’ll spend most of your increased lifespan cultivating more, and it takes an awful amount of time to get to a breakthrough that grants something that big.”

“Because of that, not a lot of people end up ascending, even though it’s really not that hard. There is one big reason that people do it, though. The limit. The furthest humanity can go. Once you ascend enough, you’ll reach the frontier, the highest humanity has climbed ever. A lot of people are either curious, ambitious, or foolish enough to go there, where everything is stronger than you, in order to reach just a bit further.”

Rynn's eyes gleamed, and she scratched her head. "Sorry, you didn't ask for that last part. All you need to do is to become powerful enough to stop the matriarch. You guys don't need to worry about the climber's dilemma for the moment. Under my training, you'll have no problem getting to the peak of Aspectual Linking."

"Well? What are we waiting for?" Seira was at the edge of her seat, and she jumped up, rocking back and forth in excitement. "When does our training start?"

"Tomorrow."

Seira seemed to deflate a bit, and Rynn gritted his teeth. "Honored Saint, I mean no disrespect, but this is urgent."

The woman nodded, reaching into her bag. "I understand, but unless you're extremely lucky and extremely talented, cultivation is a lifetime's journey. One day isn't going to change anything, and you've all overexerted yourselves today."

A runed set of cooking utensils flew out, and she gestured back to the basin. "Eat up, clean yourselves, and sleep well tonight. Tomorrow, you'll be able to train hard enough to make up for it."