Cultivators had their hearts strengthened by the energy they cultivated, and the side effect was keeping most of their personality intact. You could even tell when a cultivator came from newly established powerful families — the cultivator version of the nouveau riche — when they behaved like spoiled children. Ancient families knew to only let their children cultivate after a certain age and when they met a maturity threshold, but new families just wanted them to grow strong quickly and poured resources on them from an early age. They were thus stuck with a shitty personality that caused more trouble for the family than their powers did good.

However, even such strengthening had limits. Aaron had lost so many people over his long life, that his heart had become calloused. It didn't help that though he had seen some worlds and cultures where love reigned supreme, those were few and far between. Cultivator culture was often about resource accumulation because it helped perpetuate a clan's or family's existence and power. Even people were only resources to be valued if talented or to be ditched if not. He had also lived long enough in such an environment to be affected by it.

Therefore, as he looked at the waking Lana the day after she had fallen unconscious, his logical mind told him she was now useless to him. Grooming her would be a waste of time and effort. It would be much better to allow her to care for a store or something and forget all about her.

"She abandoned me," Lana whispered as soon as she opened her eyes and sat on the sleeping bag. Then she hugged herself.

But Aaron wasn't all calluses, he had learned empathy on Earth, and to care for his own on the original Ironblood clan. His heart also told him that was wrong to ditch Lana. That he was partly responsible for her well-being since she had only come in jeopardy because of him. That hierarchical relationships shouldn't exploitive, but mutually cooperative.

So, as Aaron stared into Lana's watering green eyes, he couldn't avoid thinking if his next words would be a mistake. He also couldn't avoid saying them. He couldn't avoid feeling slightly shameful for them. And shameful of feeling ashamed for having a heart.

He accepted all his emotions, all of himself, and said, "You're my maid, Lana Seccos. No matter what happened, you are to take it like a woman and move on. And when you can't do that alone, I'll help. I'll always help. I'm your Patriarch, after all."

He was crouching next to her. When she heard him, her watery eyes turned into sobs. She clenched his clothes and hid her face in his chest.

A quick look into her mind showed the tear had decreased by half while she slept; her unconscious mind had taken care of it. It wasn't for nothing that he considered human minds resilient.

Aaron patted her back and caressed her head.

Lana cried for a long time.

As he heard Lana's tale of what had happened, his rage surged. It took all of his self-control to keep his death aura contained, for it wanted to be released and announce to the world that a calamity was upon them.

Mind control.

Someone had mind-controlled his maid.

All of himself, the part that had empathy for her and the part that couldn't stand someone doing that to his clan, agreed:

That called for a massacre.

"And you don't know why you must hide it from the Temple of Light?" he asked.

Lana shook her head. They were sitting on cushioned wooden chairs he had taken from his ring. She held a cup of hot chocolate and a blanket was wrapped around her body. Her eyes were lost as she looked at the bonfire.

She was back to being herself. The shock had shaken her mind enough for her ego to be slapped back in place. The weight on her shoulders still prevented her from easily focusing on her surroundings though.

Aaron looked at the fire too, deep in thought. He had questioned her until he got all the details she knew. The Goddess of Light had had no control over things and feared what had happened — or at least she had pretended so. What could make gods tremble in fear?

"You talked about public scriptures from the Temple of Light before. Could I read them?" he asked.

His plan was simple. He would learn whatever the Goddess of Light taught, then head to a Temple of Darkness and learn their teachings. He should be able to find the truth in between. And it would be a plus if he also found what a Herald of Light was.

Lana hugged herself harder and her eyes teared up. "Yes. But I... I have to stay here." Tears rolled. "I was excommunicated. I'll never be allowed in the Temple of Light again. If I do..." She started sobbing. "The stares... The humiliation... I can't, Patriarch. I can't."

Aaron frowned. He bet he could force them to allow her in because she was a member of his clan before anything else, but that would be counterproductive to his plans. Lana would suffer too much and she might resent him, thus making it harder for her to become loyal to him. Also, he needed the Priests to help him, not to become defensive because he was spitting on their traditions.

He couldn't go alone either. Leaving both women completely defenseless in the store was out of the question. He had checked the formations on the wall, and though they should be able to resist any attacks up to Three Stars, they had way too many flaws for him to trust them. Not to mention he would be a fool to trust the walls of the Arcane Circle after two of its members had tried to steal from him.

On the bright side, they could at least visit the Temple of Darkness. It might even do Lana good to listen to the other side so soon after being kicked out of the light side. If nothing else, it would help take her mind out of her self-commiseration.

Not to mention that was the perfect place to show the players of the world that he would not be a pawn in their games.

But first, there was another thing that would help her.

Tatou, the white wolf, was playing with the unnamed black panther on top of Alys. The wolf acted overexcited like any dog pup, while the panther was the perfect image of a disinterested cat. Tatou jumped from one side to the other in mock preparation to leap at the female panther. She looked at the wolf as if he were the most stupid being on the planet.

"Tatou, come here," Aaron said. He used a minor Qi trick to put his voice in a frequency that would attract the wolf's curiosity, while also making his aura soothing to animals.

The wolf obeyed at once and smelled Aaron's fingers. Aaron grabbed him and put him on his shoulder. The pup started biting his ear playfully.

"Lana," he said softly, and she looked at him. "I'll cultivate the day after tomorrow, and then I'll bind Tatou to either you or me. Use this time to get close to him and decide if you want to take him as your soul beast."

Despite its cool name, soul beasts were simply beasts bound by a soul contract. That came with some unique properties, like two-way energy sharing, but for the most part, they behaved just like tamed beasts.

Aaron floated the pup to Lana and used a small pocket of Arcane Energy to make her extra interesting to the beast. Even the panther looked interested but ultimately decided to just sleep over Alys.

Tatou started licking her hand, but Lana only absentmindedly patted the Divine Beast while lost in her thoughts.

Aaron wouldn't leave for the two days remaining for him to heal completely from the stress caused by consuming the sprout. It was just too dangerous, he lacked too much information. He also wasn't confident in protecting the Divine Beasts if some god whispered the truth of their existence to a Priest, so visiting the Temple of Darkness before he was at peak condition was out of the question.

Knowing powerful people were actively moving against him changed things greatly.

So much so, that he even wondered if he should cultivate a third energy the day after tomorrow. Healing also meant being able to level up once again, and he had an energy slot remaining.

The issue was that thanks to the sprout he had consumed, the waiting time between his cultivation sessions was now based on the lowest-level energy he had. If he were a Champion Qi Manipulator, the waiting time to the next level up would be a over four years. However, if he were to also cultivate a third energy to the One Star level at the same time he reached the Champion level, the waiting time would be three days instead. That was an immense advantage.

And yet, he had almost died from the bird's attack to learn not to focus too much on the future. He needed the power to survive now. He could find a solution for the long waiting time between cultivation sessions later — that's the reason he decided to conquer the world. But first, he needed to ensure there would be a later time to speak of.

Or did he? Wasn't Arcane Energy enough? What else did he need?

He kept arguing against himself for a long time.

Absolute Energy, Prime Energy, Divine Energy, and Spiritual Energy, the four energies that permeated the universe.

In this world, Divine Energy and Spiritual Energy had been mixed together, some Prime Laws and all Divine Laws had been added to the mix, and then the resulting blob had been divided into nine specialized kinds of energy.

Normally, only Immortals could directly use Divine Energy, so mortals couldn't use anything other than Spiritual Energy to cultivate. Qi fulfilled that role. It was an energy born mostly out of Spiritual Energy, keeping about half its characteristics.

Then the Prime Laws of Space, Time, and Life were used to create Space Energy, Time Energy, Vital Energy, and part of Nature Energy.

The Divine Laws were used to create Elemental Energy, Psychic Energy, and the other part of Nature Energy. Holy Energy was kind of whatever the related god wanted it to be.

And lastly came Arcane Energy.

Arcane Energy held the other half of the characteristics of Spiritual Energy and the traces of other Laws that weren't perfectly mixed with the other energies. Whoever had tried to make the Time Laws exclusive for Time Energy, for instance, clearly didn't know enough either about the secrets of Spacetime or about energy manipulation itself. Some fragments of the Time Laws had thus spilled in other energies, Arcane Energy chief among all. The same held true for most other Laws.

That's what made Arcane Energy so versatile. It was the second-best energy in almost anything. As long as Arcane Energy was one level higher than any other, it could accomplish the same as any other. For instance, Aaron needed Three Star Arcane Energy to analyze a mind deeply, but he could have achieved that with Two Star Psychic Energy instead.

There was only one exception. Arcane Energy couldn't do whatever Qi did. Improving the dantian to cultivate other energies to a higher level, increasing oneself's speed, strengthening oneself, healing oneself; Qi did all of it. Arcane Energy didn't.

Aaron believed that to be by design to make cultivation take more time. One needed to reach Sage level, the ninth level, with Qi to cultivate another energy to the Sage level too. All the while, unless one had the protection of other people, their power would be limited. Even Aaron had suffered from that, much less common mortals.

Aaron was considering cultivating a third energy, and it would be one level below his Arcane Energy. That meant any energy he cultivated would be redundant. Except for one.

Qi was the second-best in healing, not Arcane Energy, for Arcane Energy couldn't heal unless it was through a formation. The best energy at healing was Vital Energy. Since he had Qi anyway, Vital Energy was also redundant, but only when it came to him.

Arcane Energy couldn't heal others, nor could Qi.

Vital Energy could fill the last hole in his energy manipulation capabilities.

He hadn't expected Lana to lose her class so soon. He had thought he would still have some time to find another healer for his clan, but that choice had been taken from him. A healer was fundamental though, his past struggles had shown it to him.

Vital Energy wouldn't give him a lot of healing power immediately, but the stronger the enemies he faced in battle, the stronger he would need his Vital Energy to be. He had to cultivate it as soon as possible for it not to be useless in the future. And he needed that usefulness for both himself and others.

For though he might find other healers, he would be the best healer of all. He could bear to lose Alys or Lana now, but what if he started truly caring about them? How terrible would it be to lose them? His heart was calloused, but allowing those he cared about to die when he could've prevented it still pained him.

Cultivating Vital Energy now would serve both to remove an immediate weakness and as a long-term plan of survival. Defensive magical treasures were always more expensive than attacking one of the same level because the future always held hope while dying today was the end of all. Aaron hadn't lived so long by taking chances.

Not cultivating Arcane Energy earlier had been too big a mistake. He had looked down too much on the mortals of this world. He could now see that he had been blinded by pride and arrogance.

He wouldn't make the same mistake twice.

So Aaron took a deep sigh. That was it. He would continue with the plan of conquering the world to find special resources to decrease the waiting time between his cultivation sessions.

And two days from now, he would become a Vitamancer.