When they had first met, Prospero Vandale and Anton had a massive gulf in power between them. Prospero had been a Life Transformation cultivator as long as Anton had even been alive, and Anton had merely been in Body Tempering. Anton hadn’t managed to match him even until the end of Prospero’s life, as there simply hadn’t been time to catch up.

  Then Anton had been far ahead after Prospero reincarnated. They hadn’t communicated in person for the majority of that time, which was longer than they had known each other. But strong friendships didn’t fade so easily… even with a whole lifetime in between and certain memories lost.

  They had restored some of that prior relationship with previous meetings. For a while they had been on relatively even footing, with Anton in Enrichment and Prospero in Augmentation. Now they were once more similarly situated, though of course one of them would be at a severe disadvantage depending on their location.

  Vandale wasn’t terribly excited about how he’d caught up, though. That was why he’d rushed off to see his friend, hoping for some sort of stabilizing force. Instead of sitting atop a mountain looking off into the stars… they simply hadn’t bothered to head for a planet. In fact, they’d intentionally drifted away from the closest star so that nothing outshone anything else by too much.

  They didn’t say anything for a while. Days? Weeks, maybe. Vandale was fairly certain Anton would have done something eventually, but he’d needed the time to sort through his own thoughts even after the journey.

  “I’m not even certain what I wanted to hear.” That was Vandale’s first admission to Anton.

  Sometimes, there weren’t answers to things like that. And other times, there were. “Everything will be alright,” Anton said. Sometimes, those were just words- but people needed to hear them. When Anton said them, they sounded true. He was one of the few people that was qualified to speak on the topic of everything so confidently. “Tell me how it happened.”

  “I don’t even know where to begin,” Vandale admitted. Yet he managed anyway.

  Prospero Vandale recounted the story of Hoyt’s journey towards Domination, especially after Timothy and Catarina broke through. The two of them gave what advice they could, offering their insights and how others of the One Hundred Stars might best transform their energy.

  “Is it strange, that there are three of our sect who were successful?” Prospero asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Anton said. “The One Hundred Stars is flexible enough to allow anyone to grow. It had a very solid core developed in the earliest parts of Ceretos’ history. That which wasn’t erased, of course.”

  It was impossible to say how much of it came from previous cycles. The origins of most cultivation techniques were lost, as their founders were regularly slain with the cycles and many of the insights destroyed to keep the lower realms from growing too strong. Yet in some way, perhaps that meant that if any techniques thrived, they had to be among the best.

  “I should have been the one to take the risk,” Prospero commented.

  Anton thought for a good long time before responding. “Do you believe you were ready?”

  “Not at all. But-”

  “Then you certainly should not have. Cultivators must learn from the flaws of those before us. Does that mean we should forge a path of intentional mistakes? Of course not. Only by striving for success can we get close enough to fail.” Anton spoke passionately to his friend, “You know that Hoyt was not some young, inexperienced cultivator. You were on nearly equal playing fields in terms of experience. He came to the conclusion that he could succeed. He didn’t. That’s just how it is. We’ll never know for certain his probability of success. Perhaps that’s not even the right way to look at it.”

  Prospero nodded. That was enough of that, for the moment. “What do you think of… my results? A moment suspended in time. Should I have gone for something more firm, enduring? It is a poor example…”

  Anton shook his head. “It’s the most honest anything can be. Nothing lasts forever. Nor do I think we should try to.”

  That finally got Prospero to smile. “Of course you would say that, as a practitioner of Fleeting Youth.”

  “Maybe you should have tried it too,” Anton suggested. “Though I’m not certain about how it would count lifespan beyond a reincarnation. It would probably be a dissonant technique. Not much good for the one promise it makes to begin with.”

  “What… should I do?” Prospero asked.

  “Whatever you think is best. But if you are uncertain, there are plenty around who you can ask about specific scenarios. What are you considering?”

  “... Chasing down Yann. Or assaulting the Swirling Swarm.”

  “Both could be trouble in the future,” Anton agreed. “But “I think it would be best to remember that you are, in fact, just a baby Domination cultivator. Consider how Timothy and Catarina fared in the war- with a century or so of time behind them. The first few decades, you’ll need to grow into your power. I’m still not comfortable with all the power of Unity.”

  Prospero sighed slowly, releasing some of his long held tension. Of course Anton was right about that. “It’s not the end of the road.”

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  “At the very least, Domination has more steps to be taken. Whether there is value at looking even further than that I would seriously question, however. If you wish to explore certain stars, it might be the best opportunity. But as far as we know, it would be a lonely journey.”

  “Hmm.” Prospero was aware that there was a border on the other side of the upper realms- though he had not explored it well enough to determine what sorts of energy, if any, lay beyond it. It was true that if there was another ascension to be had, there was no point. There would be no friends to join, nor enemies to fight against. Some cultivators might find it worthwhile, if it offered some higher level of power, but what good was power if it wasn’t used for something? “I do think I would eventually like to explore every star.”

  “You’re going to need a massive lifespan, my friend,” Anton grinned. “Did you know, there are hundreds of stars?”

  It was a hilarious statement when they were literally surrounded by thousands of stars visible to the untrained eye. Tens of thousands that they could see as cultivators without using a speck of energy to enhance themselves. And then, just in a single galaxy, hundreds of billions. Anton didn’t even know what it would take to travel between galaxies.

  “I’d settle for knowing that someone was going to eventually succeed,” Anton said. “As long as we don’t count the ones that die, of course. But maybe someday people will have nothing better to do than explore the stars, moving from galaxy to galaxy and visiting every single last one. Including those born after they began.”

  “Maybe I’ll settle just for laying my eyes on them,” Prospero commented.

  “You’d better hope that the universe isn’t infinite, then.”

  “That might not be unmanageable. I hear that Everheart is being… surprisingly effective in different locations at the same time.”

  “I heard that as well,” Anton said. Everheart was a security threat relevant to both upper and lower realms, after all. “I’d thought he was a bit… finished with long term projections. But perhaps Domination has given him some other methods. But I believe some mathematicians would inform you that a small, countable number of clones wouldn’t be enough.”

  “If I figure out how to live forever,” Prospero said. “I’m certain I could manage it. You could join me. At least along one route.”

  Anton nodded slowly. “I might be interested. But we’d have to start sooner rather than later. I’m not quite comfortable with the state of things here, however. And… I’m not planning to live forever.”

  “That hasn’t changed,” Prospero said. “I almost wish it would, but it would be a bit impractical for you to change.”

  “I’m quite infused with the principles of Fleeting Youth. A thousand years is already ten times what I was prepared for.”

  “It sure passes quickly, doesn’t it?”

  “Every time I blink my eyes, I swear a decade passes,” Anton agreed. “It’s not so bad, though I’ve lost track of all my descendants. My connection was severed by several generations of people choosing to live normal lives without much cultivation.”

  “If you go long enough…” Prospero shrugged.

  “I’m not expecting anything from Anishka or Alva at this point,” Anton said. “Though they could always change their mind. And it’s difficult for Timothy and Catarina to have more. Chidi is also probably disinterested in family. Maybe Yuval… though I don’t really need more family. I have a great number of adorable disciples to keep up with. Some of them are even human.”

  The topics of conversation continued to stray further from the original. That was by design, as Prospero would have little to gain from continuing to dwell on what had happened. At some point he truly would have to choose where to focus his efforts next, but that could wait at least a little longer. Neither Anton nor Prospero would consider doing nothing as a possibility. Nor was simply cultivating and ignoring the affairs of the world a worthwhile alternative.

  -----

  Anton could feel Prospero’s anchor through him, when he was willing. He didn’t comment on the tiny speck of energy sealed there. The why of that was obvious enough. Prospero’s fears were somewhat justified. It was a sort of transient anchor. If he truly lost his resolve- or it weakened enough for long enough- then the meteor would progress along its path. It couldn’t serve as an anchor once it reached a certain point.

  In some ways, Anton thought that made it better. A cultivator without proper convictions didn’t need the amount of power a Domination cultivator could have. The same of Unity cultivators, though being a Unity cultivator was more self-balancing. The people of the lower realms pulled on Anton as much as he pulled upon them- not in terms of drawing upon his energy, but through the web of connection.

  They rarely needed Anton for anything. If he happened to be near a system he could help anywhere more hands were needed, but even his ability to reach anywhere on a planet was pretty much pointless. The chances of there not being some competent cultivators much closer were pretty much nonexistent. Aside from accidents and disasters, he was most useful for sharing insights. That was something worth hanging around for. And things in the upper realms simply refused to stay stable long term, so he might be called to the border- more directly.

  “Maybe you should have tried starbinding,” Anton suggested to Prospero.

  “A bit late for that, I think,” Prospero chuckled. “And while it’s certainly a valid form of expression in the lower realms, it didn’t seem quite right for anchors. At least how you had it previously, being restricted in area would have been a bit… problematic.” Prospero shrugged. “Then again, once we had the spatial distortion, it was a reasonable alternative. I think the biggest problem would have been that people already knew you do that.”

  “So it’s my fault?” Anton grinned. “Passing the blame onto others, are we?”

  It was a reasonable explanation, though. Anchors were connected to the Domination cultivator. Even if they weren’t always publicly known, there was something about that connection that had value. Repeating what others had done effectively might result in a dead end rather than reaching a new stage, simply because of how much it relied on perception. Domination just wasn’t quite as good at sharing as Unity would likely be. Obviously they had to get more Unity cultivators first to confirm that. It would be a shame if their connections worked at cross-purposes.

  That would certainly be an issue if the cultivators in question weren’t in alignment with their motives, but the lower realms had been growing in the right direction in that regard for many centuries now. The Alliance itself was solid. Anton expected new Unity cultivators to require little more than some intentional connection, though it might not be easy. Nothing worthwhile usually was, at least not the first time.