There was a significant and obvious problem if Anton wanted to alter the flow of the tides of the world. It was not a small project, but that wasn’t the most important factor. Instead it was familiarity and connection. Ceretos Anton had lived upon for two hundred and thirty years, multiple reasonable lifetimes. Rutera, the system Anton was next most familiar with, he had only a handful of years or decades, and only as a visitor. He honestly didn’t even know where to start, or if he should. It was a question of how long it would take, among other things.

Theoretically, anyone born on Rutera at the very moment he was contemplating could reach Anton’s level of power by the time of the invasion. That meant any of those who had been cultivating since their first contact with Ceretos would have several more decades than that. If they began to learn and practice the techniques now, perhaps they could do something. Or it might take a century or more regardless of the familiarity.

Anton frowned. He hadn’t been planning to make an actual large change without consulting them, but he was quite fond of Rutera. Some of the people there were like family. But from that perspective, he should just help them be the best they could be. He could work with the other cultivators on Ceretos to combine their efforts, if there was anything that could functionally be changed about the tide of the world in the time they had. Could they hold off an invasion by years, decades? Given their status, that would be more advantageous to them than the enemy.

Sadly, Anton didn’t know. All he knew was that on some level the techniques described were possible- but so was Anton moving a planet between systems one chunk at a time, if he didn’t die of old age. The question is what could actually be done. And for the moment the answer was practice with patience. The next cycle would come and allow an invasion, and at worst they might keep themselves isolated only to direct more forces towards their allies. So if anything could be changed, more understanding was necessary first.

That would take time, but while waiting… Anton could check out neighboring systems. They might find others, hopefully more on the friendly side or at least not aggressive.

-----

Despite the significantly greater distances involved, messages between the upper and lower realms were only a few times slower than those between nearby systems in the lower realms, at least with the current functionality. Either could theoretically be improved at some point by formation masters of significant drive and talent.

That included Catarina, but she was not interested in that aspect at the moment. Instead, she was still working out how to transfer techniques back and forth. There had been some success, but it wasn’t the problem of transmitting that was holding her back, exactly. Rather, it was replicating any technique without the hand of the original author. There was sometimes a large difference between the words on the page and the thoughts imbued into the page, and a copy of just the technical wording would often result in an inferior or simply incomplete technique.

Perhaps that was a weakness of the creators, unable to express themselves in words. It was true that many concepts were extremely difficult to communicate, but some techniques were overly complex and some could simply be described more clearly. Though it was useful for Catarina and her type of learning, not everyone would do well hearing how long to have energy flow through which meridians for exactly how long in what direction.

And she hadn’t even gotten to the issues of differences between ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ energy.

At least word from Anton was that the war with the Sylanis Cluster was over. It was hard for her to imagine so many Worldbinding cultivators, or rather she hadn’t even seen Assimilation cultivators. Treating them just like Integration cultivators was not correct either. One gained power from using a greater type of energy, another gained power from quantity and replenishment of the energy they were already used to. A cultivator in the upper realms who upper realms who managed both would be nearly unstoppable… but perhaps those were Augmentation or Domination cultivators.

Even with access to Everheart, there wasn’t that much information about them. There was only so much the man was willing to share, though Catarina suspected it was not only for lack of helpfulness. Instead, she detected a hint of shame at lack of information- but that could have been her reading between the lines. A risk at the best of times when one was not communicating with manipulative assholes, which was one of the nicer things people called Everheart.

But she trusted his words as far as her grandfather did… which was a little bit. Somehow, even through the vast distances between them their messages were distinct. One radiated cold detachment, the other love despite them not having seen each other in decades. And they wouldn’t for another century yet. There were methods to travel to the lower realms even when the tides of the world didn’t quite match up, as Everheart showed, but it was not something to be done lightly. Returning would be more difficult and costly, and Catarina had too much to do in the upper realm to spend an amount of time in the lower realms worth the effort and cost- years, at least.

-----

Citadel’s Downfall seemed, at first, to be a bunch of disconnected moves. Carefully formulated, yes, and a list of appropriate counters for the style the Harmonious Citadel displayed, but little more than that. Included within were also techniques for disrupting the flow of their cultivation technique which Vari found much more useful- and concerning. Though her own version was quite modified, serious flaws were revealed that could reduce her power by a significant margin if properly exploited. However, if she could remove those flaws while still keeping the important fundamentals of her style- including the ability to draw upon those of the Harmonious Citadel and the saints in particular- then she would have a serious advantage.

Was it enough to make up for being an Integration cultivator against Augmentation cultivators? Likely not. And though she wasn’t planning to go into any such battle alone, she also couldn’t expect odds much better than one-to-one. Still, these techniques being distributed more widely would improve the power of their alliance. It just had to also not fall into the hands of the Harmonious Citadel or they might fix their flaws.

Though it looked like the counters mentioned were simply individual moves, once she began to practice them Vari felt something different. Something more to it. Maybe everything would fit together into a more comprehensive style of its own, though not one with strict moves. That was what she felt, though after extensive self training she also knew she would need practical experience. That meant fighting against the Harmonious Citadel.

She was not reluctant to do so- in fact she was rather eager- but only those who were the upper echelon, the practitioners of the Glorious Harmony Technique and the saints. They were responsible for all of the problems. Those who practiced the Holy Harmony Technique, like she had, were simply pawns. Unknowing, for the most part. They would be dealt with when she had to, but Vari preferred facing the actual problems if at all possible.

-----

The system used for describing the relative locations of systems had been generally agreed upon. From the perspective of Ceretos, the center of the galaxy was ‘north’, eventually leading to the upper realms and much closer leading to Weos. Rutera was rotationally clockwise, which was ‘west’. The Sylanis Cluster was also mainly west or slightly northwest. Thus, in the search for new systems, Anton found it most appropriate to go east or south.

Though he had one additional star he could bind to, Anton kept that in reserve, traveling not under his own power but in a proper interstellar ship. It was capable of a significant distance of travel as long as Anton was not in any particular haste, spending months combing through a system or two.

That was an important feature, as the system to the east did not have much in the way of natural energy. The stars always had it in abundance, the great power they produced likewise coming with strands of energy that could be transformed and wielded. The empty, lifeless worlds however had very little natural energy to speak of- only what was trapped there by their gravity, Anton postulated. Though the more sizable planets were not insignificant in power, it was less readily accessible in the form of great storms, powerful icy oceans, or the like.

Though the planets were lifeless, Anton didn’t find it unpleasant to visit them. It was not the same as visiting somewhere that should have been alive and finding it barren. For human life, and those sharing planets with them like the majority of what Anton had seen, there were acceptable temperature and atmospheric ranges that those systems simply didn’t have. Gravity, too. Humans would not survive to cultivate with too much gravity, and too little would have different issues.

Anton explored these empty planets, poking around interesting places. Some had great volcanic activity and interesting crystal formations that would not develop in a planet with the atmospheres he expected. Others were more like the moon- more or less round and featureless except for pockmarks from impacts over the millennia and more they had been around.

Some would have been looking for resources. Anton didn’t find it particularly enticing to pull out hundreds of tons of raw metals and refine them, and if that was truly something desirable it could be done back in his home system. Asteroids just floated around with masses of metal relatively easy to get to. As for anything unique, Anton didn’t have the qualifications to judge it. He did pick up a few samples of things he didn’t think he’d seen elsewhere, but doubtless he would be corrected.

Only a few eager explorers came with Anton to help with logging information. Ceretos had plans for longer term expeditions, but Anton was mostly interested in poking his head around and then leaving. Elsewhere, Rutera and Weos were back to the same, or would be now that the war was over.

There were only a few peculiarities Anton thought particularly notable, besides the differences in stars themselves. He would someday experiment how different stars affected his abilities more.

As for the oddities, there was one system in particular that had a number of planets and moons orbiting perpendicular to the general orbital plane. What plane that might be was difficult to determine, but approximately half of the planets went one way and half the other. And, while moons would normally stick to the same plane the planet rotated around, the same was true for them- about half followed their planets and half went perpendicular around the other way.

That most certainly did not seem natural, given how gravity tended to tug things into one plane, but maybe they struck a perfect balance… or simply had not had the time to shift into the ‘normal’ configuration yet. The important part was Anton had not found any life, human or otherwise. Cultivators might eventually be interested in expanding to live in any of the convenient systems to the east, but as they were it was of little practical merit.

The more promising ones were to the south. Anton had only chosen east because it was the direction the other systems had the least access to, because they were somewhat closer, and because of idle curiosity. He was also nervous, as entering a system without a star he had assimilated would make him vulnerable. Though realistically everyone else with him would be more vulnerable, as he was still stronger than a Life Transformation cultivator regardless. Ultimately, a few months wouldn’t make a difference either way, and the order he chose to go to places shouldn’t matter- or at least it couldn’t be predicted how it would matter.