But for a Slime

Chapter 645 - 2.132 - Interlude - Formation of the Aelthron Cradle

Chapter One Hundred Thirty Two

About 32 Galyears ago.

About thirty two galyears ago in the great cycle known as the Starry Path, or approximately eight billion years ago as a certain base species astonishingly living in absence in that same great cycle, or galaxy, known to them as the Milky Way, Aelthron collapsed. In his arms, cradling the days old infant, Aelthron laid himself to his death and the ground with deliberate caution, making sure the babe was cradled and would not be crushed as his spirit was ripped from his being and embedded into the great working surrounding his cradle. His long time friend, and source of mana moaned in slow reaction, as all cradles did, their minds vast, eternal, but incredibly slow. It would take months for the message to arrive, the cries of pain and sorrow finally formed to words Aelthron could understand, but at least he could offer his own comfort in return, immediately.

Be at peace, my friend. At least now, we shall be together… eternally!

His message sent and received almost immediately still did not slow or alter his companion's long low moan and cry to see his death. As always, Aelthron partitioned a portion of his efforts to understand his cradle, the massive mind's response coming slowly over days and weeks and required some portion of his concentration to carefully capture the complex reply and parse it as it slowly formed and developed over weeks. Even his response, already sent, had to be sent with unbearable slowness, to his mortal sensibilities, requiring it to be spoken over hours and even days so the cradle could capture its meaning instead of it being lost in a garbled punch of meaningless noise, at least to the cradle.

With that done, there was little else to occupy Aelthron's attention and he turned his focus upon the events immediately following the completion of the prison mana formation. It was an extensive working of magic, greater than all other workings the Starry Path had ever seen, but for one. Taglisea's great working, suggested and eagerly enforced by his Emperor. Aelthron sighed, then sighed again. His fate was sealed and he knew nothing else he could do.

But now, he had time, and not simply the time of cultivators; of years upon years, millennia upon millennia; and for the greatest of powers, millions. But Aelthron had already breached his millions, a vast proportion of his life already complete. If he was lucky, he'd had half his life left. Think on the positive side! Now I'm effectively immortal! Aelthron tried to laugh at his own joke, but felt the bitter irony twist his non-existent lips. Many had chosen the path of the failed soultether, becoming deadfast for exactly this reason. They had gained just enough power to strengthen their souls but had failed in their path to cultivation, unable to breach the next barrier and had run out of time. He'd succeeded beyond almost any other's expectations, and was forced to this state. Still, Aelthron tried to maintain a positive attitude and took a few weeks off to rest after his death, getting used to being permanently soultethered to a single location.

Even after 'coming back' and focusing on the now narrow world around him, Aelthron struggled to return to any semblance of peace. He watched his funeral. He watched his children mourn his death. He watched them slowly come to terms, then grow and develop. He watched on with pride even as they grew stronger and developed, even in the crippled, now doubly crippled, cradle that was left to him and his clan.

Then he watched them grow old, aged and decrepit, then die, and the struggle to see the positive ground down upon him. He saw sycophants begin to twist and corrupt his clan even as his grand children began to be used, losing wealth and status and finally, Aelthron roused himself. He couldn't speak, the curse was clear, but justice raged deep within him even as he saw his family being threshed for what could be stolen, and he turned to what he could do to save his family.

Turning his efforts to communication, he continued ignoring what had happened to him and dove into the curse, struggling to understand it and tease out the boundaries of what it was. With great effort over decades and centuries, he finally grasp a possibility that returned both his joy and curiosity. Ever the one to explore and learn, he became engrossed in attempting to understand how he could communicate without communicating as living creatures bound to mana. It was a fascinating thing, exciting and powerful, so he spent almost a millennia upon it, crafting and developing his methods as best he could.

He curiosity and drive kept him focused upon his efforts and he became ever more lost in his efforts to develop his communication tool, spending less and less time on watching his family. The joy of discovery and learning returned to him. He spent long, polishing and preparing his work, excited but always finding one more thing he could do, and if it was not for the moment where his grandson almost died, Aelthron would have likely spent many more years developing, lost in the joy of creation.

His grandson had journeyed deep into the wilds on an adventure or another, traveling with friends and family where he was ambushed by bandits a little too strong and well equipped. Aelthron never learned if they had been paid to attack his grandson, but the moment drew his attention away from his development of this new communication method, worry crawling through him. In the fight, his grandson performed well, the anxiety Aelthron felt more a general concern than any real danger. That danger, however, turned incredibly real when an assassin stealthily approached from behind, his grandson's opponent putting in great effort to keep his grandson's focus.

Fear spiked, and Aelthron acted before even knew it. With a quick flash of effort, he drilled down to his heartsite through his soultether and put effort into forming an image in front of his grandson. It was simple, and quite obvious now, with some thought. Maybe words were impossible to use to communicate, but simple pictures should suffice more than enough, and a blue box appeared in front of his grandson with a simple image of him, fighting his opponent while another stalked him from behind. The moment of shock was almost enough to undo his grandson, but his grandson proved his mettle and immediately leapt to the side, saving himself from the assassin's attack.

Aelthron's joy proved short lived, however, as further attempts to communicate with his grandson after the event failed miserably. Oh, the sterile blue box appeared, and imagery did form upon the box, but now it was a jumbled morass of twisting morphing lines and smeared liquid. Nothing he attempted proved adequate and nothing Aelthron tried to reveal was communicated.

Any joy at finding a method to communicate evaporated, and his desire to continue with it. He fell into a stupor, simply watching his grandchildren age, then die. And then his great grandchildren. And then even more. He didn't know how long he lived in his fugue, staring at nothing but the meaningless progression of live that marched ever onward further and further from him becoming lost in the fog of time until he couldn't even recognize the people at his family compound as family anymore.

He turned away and lost himself. He didn't know how long he stayed like that, but after some moments, he finally turned himself from internal thoughts and sought for anything else. His mind turned outward, looking from his inner moon out to all the other moons in this cradle, and finally found his interest roused once again. I am a deadfast… now… and...

Once he'd accepted being deadfast, he turned to view his heartsite, grinning with some excitement as his desire to figure out and learn what he could do with an entire cradle as his heartsite burned through him. This is… probably the largest heartsite of any… and … its mine! The largest!

His project to figure out methods of communication still burned next to him, and he glanced at it, but set it aside for now. There wasn't much left to work on that regardless, its formation rather complete. So he turned his thoughts to other possibilities.

His first thought as to consider his people and soon felt sadness and righteous anger rise once more. His people had fallen to mortals, with almost nothing left. The skies of his planes almost completely empty of any powerful immortals flying to and fro, only the slow unending plodding of mortals marching through mud and dirt below. Not only that, each plane had grown ever more insular as travel between planes became ever rarer; no immortals strong enough to fly, let alone brave the emptiness between the planes orbiting his friend and Cradle. Even travel within the same plane proved arduous and incredibly long, some taking months and even years to travel their planes.

So, Aelthron bent himself to helping his people. Luckily, Alethron was a great ritualist, and developing ritual travel was child's play. Across all the planes, great rituals formed within the predominate cities and then inlaid upon sheets of stone before being protected and enshrouded in anti-entropic magics, protecting and preserving their original states. Around each of the planes, secondary travel rituals subordinate to the primary travel ritual in the largest city on each plane, rapidly formed and almost seemed to grow from the grounds where they formed. Unlike the primary travel formations, the secondary formations were chosen for maximum spread and not for population density. Aelthorn still chose the closest human habitation to put down the secondary travel rituals, but the spread across each plane with relative equidistance, allowing for travel across the planes with much greater ease just as much as travel to other planes.

The rapid and immediate nature of Aelthron's efforts brought an incredible peace to him and he found himself turning to further efforts with an energy that had been lost to him. The ease of travel to cause issues, several expansionist cities and clans using them to conquer and spread, but they were quickly brought into check because of that very ease of travel. Allies were just as easy to find, if much rarer, as targets for expansion.

Aelthron, after the travel rituals, found himself uncertain how to continue, lost in thought as he mused on where he could go next. He spent a couple days brainstorming before finally returning to his communication efforts as no real new ideas came forth. He spent a good chunk of time polishing his efforts but focused on the people, staring down upon what were his descendants many times removed. And he mourned. They have lost so much…

Aelthron's gaze turned to the mana points that floated around all his planes in his cradle and even in a great fog surrounding all the planes around his cradle. There were so many mana points ready to be captured and used, but essentially blocked as those here were cursed, and the curse only grew. Even as he watched, the children of the cursed intermingled with those uncursed, and the curse passed on; the uncursed shrinking ever more generation after generation. And Aelthron grew ever more despondent even as he drove himself to a response; a possible future still vauge. Another … path to power. They cannot use mana points, so then how would…

Aelthron spent an amount of time he could not easily define struggling to find a solution to return power to his people. Several ideas danced in his thoughts until he chose the most audacious. Epiphanies… mana visions… they are independent of any known development path… but offer great power! To know the truth of reality greatly enhanced one's power and control over it. And so began a millennia upon millennia effort to quantize mana epiphanies and bring them to his people.

It was a pipe dream; an impossibility, yet when Aelthron had his own mana vision shortly after enacting his first effort to standardize epiphany, Aelthron dove into it with a frenzy. Ritual after ritual, placed upon the various planes, grew to a massive cradle wide monstrosity, only enacted at specific moments when the planes would align and allow the formation to complete. Aelthron even began capturing and moving asteroids and dust, maneuvering them into place at the perfect moments to complete ritual magics, each planes orbiting the cradle become focal points while the asteroids and dust became the lines of dust drawn to drive mana and guide power.

Ritual after ritual formed and the power of its effect grew and grew; each new ritual deriving dozens and sometimes hundreds of new epiphanies for Aelthron to develop and grow. Each new epiphany revealing more and teaching greater understanding of reality allowing Aelthron to refine his ritual and develop it with even greater understanding, power, and efficacy. Again and again, Aelthron refined his ritual until epiphany became so common, even the weakest of immortals would experience it thousands and tens of thousands of times in their lives, if they were citizens of his cradle!

This would have never been possible before, a ritual across an entire cradle and all its planes. A ritual across the void between planes connecting the planes as very nodes of the ritual itself. It was only possible because it was his heartsite. He wasn't even certain it would have been possible if he'd actually been a wholefast instead of a deadfast; a being, still alive and hale with body and mind but successfully soultethered to a heartsite. It was likely only possible because he was a deadfast, unbound and unlimited by organic mind and body.

His work drove him onwards, a passion that left him jittery at what he was doing. If any other knew of this, the very Starry Path itself, every Cradle and every great one would invade his cradle to take it for their own, or immigrate if they had no other option. But none came, for none would wish to be a citizen of his cradle.

Lost in his efforts, Aelthron only took breaks to work on his communication efforts, his passion to accomplish the task driving him so powerfully he found it difficult to rest so sought rest in another project. Time lost meaning to him, and he reveled in his efforts. Every new epiphany drove him onwards, but like all learning, his knowledge returned fewer and fewer fruits and when he finally completed the ultimate formation, Aelthron stepped back with wonder and waited. It was with both sadness and a sense of completion that no new epiphanies came. His efforts were as perfect as he could make them. There were no new paths forwards. He did his due diligence, putting effort into finding new possibilities, reevaluating old ones, and carefully evaluating the now used and dead formation. But nothing new showed itself and no new paths were revealed.

He sat back, as much as a spirit is able to, and reveled in his success. He was likely the only one to ritualize epiphany, but he had done it. His people would be so powerful as to be overwhelming in this great cycle of the Starry Path. No clan could stand against his people. And so he turned his attention upon his people, and despaired. In all the time and effort he'd put into developing his great effort, his people had regressed even further. He found almost no immortals left; all dead and long gone. There were some few moments of joy as he saw several immortals entering moments of epiphany and he felt vindication for his deep efforts, but the immortals of his Cradle were dying out and only mortals were left.

Still, he crushed his despair and felt some peace as the foundation he'd laid for his people was incredible. And he turned his gaze, watching with avid excitement the many thousands upon thousands of mortals that graced his cradle. His vigil was long, and despair only a heartbeat away, but he remained strong. He remained strong even as the last immortal died out. And he remained strong even as he saw no new epiphanies amongst the mortals.

Aelthron put aside his anxiety and paused, thinking through what he might be missing until he realized he'd been focusing on the wrong people. Of course those older would have already had all the low hanging fruit. All their epiphanies would have been completed. I should focus upon the children. And he ignored the trifling doubt that pointed out he'd already been watching for a very long time.

Aelthron did exactly that, excitement whirling as he picked out several thousand newborns and focused upon them, watching them over the next decade or two. He made many careful notes, but even as he studied, his excitement fell into frustration, but not quite despair. Amongst the poorest, none had epiphanies. And even amongst the wealthy, almost none did as well. Only those who had excellent education had moments of epiphany and it was with this understanding that Aelthron collapsed back into frustration. This actually helped him push his despair back as now he understood.

How could one have an epiphany of something if they do not know that something… they require some kind of … base knowledge… some kind of … base information! If they knew that…

Aelthron stewed in that thought for quite a long time, spending centuries and even millennia in careful thought, now much more comfortable with and accepting his immortality. The pressure to perform vanished before the knowledge that he know had time. So he reveled in it, allowing himself to consider this carefully and not quickly leap to into an option in a mere few decades as he often did while still alive.

His original thought was to offer some form of training or teaching but as he continued to brainstorm over the centuries, his idea continued to refine and form up into a comprehensive integrated revelation system for any form of knowledge he could think of. He struggled with the more esoteric purely conceptual based forms of knowledge, especially for those that had no real physical reality. How do I teach about philosophy and leadership; governance and familial responsibility… Guess for the family stuff I can show a family, but how… being able to show family… … being protective… maybe a short play … but responsibility to parents and right living… this…

The centuries passed, and he polished his work. His vision to have an all-encompassing method to pass on the foundations of a good and rightful life such that a mortal could begin to develop the basis to gain access to the epiphanies he already had developed. Truly, the only necessity for the epiphanies was to have a well-developed knowledge on the philosophies and the natural order of the world. Aelthron, however, was no fool and had no desire to raise up powerful ingrates and murderers. There was an expectation to the right use of the power he was granting to his people.

That said, his greatest struggle was trying to do all this in a way that would not fall under his curse of communication. He could not speak to anyone. That was the greatest stumbling block, until he realized that the travel gates that he'd raised up all through his cradle intrinsically communicated location possibilities to those who used them.

This understanding left him whirling with confusion until he realized a possible answer: he couldn't communicate with the people, but any construct he created could. The ritual had to be the source and holder of information. The ritual had to be the teacher and passer on of knowledge. He could not be it. So, with this critical piece of information, Aelthron began his greatest creation of ritual and formation magic ever created, possibly even greater than the monstrosity that Taglisea had deceived the Emperor of the Starry Path to back and create.

But that required a rethinking of everything he'd ever done and known about rituals. To place knowledge into a ritual, making it an intrinsic part of its existence, allowing it to be passed on to others. Not only this, Aelthron quickly understood that it would have to grow, learn, and change based upon any new learned understandings of the dao. It had to learn. It had to teach. It had to grow. Aelthron almost despaired, then buckled down. He had his immortality so he would take it.

Since he was doing it alone, it took millennia. But since he was soultethered and deadfasted, he could afford time and coupled with that immortality was his heartsite, a boon from his soultethering, failed or not. It offered an almost limitless power to infuse into its creation since it was in his actual heartsite. The cradle was his… it was essentially him, and manifesting mana and mana points within his heartsite offered stability and power that was unprecedented. Year by year over centuries and millennia, the structure formed and the complete formation came into being. Multiple formations were completed on each plane, requiring perfect alignments across with half a dozen, even ten or eleven other planes. One plane even required an alignment with thirty eight other planes, perfectly angled to each of the thirty six other planes.

The formation grew so complex, Aelthron even had to take on the responsibility of twisting the orbits of eight of the planes to properly align, holding ground asteroids in perfectly laid astral lines between each plane. The final preparations took almost three centuries, planes locked into orbital positions as he organized proper formation lines across lunar distances. If before, his power was tested, now, his power drained like water through a hole. He wanted longer, but he knew his power would not last. Three years was already pushing the limits of his capabilities.

The people noticed, of course, but Aelthron managed the day night cycle manually for each of the planes during the moments he needed to have their rotations frozen until he'd properly lined up the formation. Then, he would release the planes to resume their natural rotations perfectly time to their typical day night cycles. Still, his power was ripped from him in massive swathes as he struggled to create his formation.

By the time he'd gotten to the creation of his work, he realized he'd far outstripped Taglisea and what she'd done. His work was a masterpiece that should have been recorded for the histories, but none would know of it. None would understand it, for the only ones to experience it were the mortals upon his cradle. There were no more immortals left. His clan had collapsed completely back to mortality, all power and hoarded paths to immortality lost to the ravages of time.

As he developed the formation, he would lock and release rotations as each plane was needed until the moment was ready, the formation was complete. And for the final year, every orbit, every rotation, every position of each plane was locked to its perfect location, readied for the final completion of the ritualized formation. As each plane settled into place, Aelthron steadied the lunar distance lines, then reformed them to perfection as the ether eddies of each plane disturbed the perfect lines he'd already drawn. Some form of the attractive – repulsive principle in play, pulling each line towards the planes.

Once all lines, anchors, and planes were returned to their corrected positions, Aelthron tested thrice before enacting the ritual. And then the fated day came. Power thrummed, overwhelming and star shaking as the power of its formation tore through the entire greater cycle, thrumming past star after star. It even went into the great void between greater cycles, empty of any star for distances so vast Aelthron struggled to even comprehend them; dead space without anything, star, planet, dust, or even particles.

* * *

The emperor of the entire greater cycle, the Starry Path, sat at the edge of his domain, the singular greater cycle holding all stars under his command. Before him stretched the void of nothingness for distances greater than even the width of his entire domain, the Starry Path. From one side of his domain to the other, passing countless stars, millions upon billions of stars, and yet the blank void before him made the distance his domain stretched look like nothing more than a grain of sand in the palm of a great void shaped hand. All around him was emptiness. Nothingness. Behind him lay the last star of his domain, the cradle of this domain stretched to its limits to maintain the matrix of mana. He stood right upon the brink of absence. A deep sigh took him, a waste as there was no air of any kind where he stood, but the learning of his youth still ingrained deep habits.

A hand reached out and as it passed beyond the matrix, mana began streaming from his palm and hand, ripped from his being even as he grunted with some pain. A grimace twisted his limits as he fought against the loss of mana. It hurt, likely greater than anything else he'd felt. And it grew worse as he gained in power.

The millennia upon millennia that had passed since the rebellion and its subsequent crushing; since he'd lost his best friends who'd betrayed him; since Aelthron had foolishly bound himself, deadfast, to a heartsite; those millennia had not been kind. He missed his friends. And he was now so much less certain of the decision he'd made so long ago.

He sighed and pressed out into Absence, fleeing from the cradle at the fastest speed possible, eyes pinned upon the closest stars to him, hoping against hope he could see some change in the distance. He moved faster than he'd ever before, mana streaming from him like escaping clouds and steam, ripped from his body by the void. The poor protections he'd created already proving inadequate to the job.

He was trapped. And his despair grew. The distant field of stars he saw, a small round odd globe or disc, unlike the beautiful two armed sweeps, and some extra brushes, of stars in a wide flung structure that was his beautiful Starry Path, made no change. He pushed his speed, committing and traveling for years, then decades, but still, there was no change. When he'd squandered almost half his mana, the emperor slowed to a halt and lost himself in a rage; pain and despair driving him until he turned and fled back to the mana matrix in fear. His mana would be lost soon, and with it, his life.

He did not have the speed of Loki, and having lost the friendship, had no way to ask for guidance or teaching. He could only flee back to the mana field and recuperate, and despair. There was almost nothing he could do. He needed speed; so much more speed than he could ever comprehend. But that required power. But the more power he gained, the more difficult it was to maintain his power in the void. It was almost like the void sucked mana from his very being. The greater amount of mana he held, the faster the void ripped it from his being, his mana leaping from his body almost in glee.

But even if his growth were increasing, the emperor knew it would not be enough. The speed he gained did not equal the loss of mana he was experiencing. Mana fled from him in great bursts, gulped up by the void, and each increase in power he gained increased that loss. And… so too did the pain increase.

Suddenly, he felt a massive wave of power erupt from the center of the Starry Path. Almost, the emperor ignored the wave of power. It was uncommon, true; ritual power that echoed through the entire Starry Path, a wave through every star, but it was not so uncommon that he'd not felt dozens upon dozens of them in the past hundreds of millennia. It was a simple cradle ritual, he quickly surmised as he tasted its power and evaluated. Normally, he would send out several of his men to find out the details, it was always wise. But he was alone and far from his seat of power. He chewed his lips for a time before surging forward towards the nearest interstellar gate. The least I could do is have someone look it up.

Traveling back to the center of the Starry Path was faster than the time it took for him to travel from the cradle's edge to the interstellar gate. A single step and the vast power of the gate whipped him towards his palace in moments. A simple command and he was back out at the edge of the Starry Path, his greater cycle. He was not returned long. A messenger returned with vexing news; the ritual had come from Aelthron's cradle.

* * *

Aelthron retreated to the moment, his mind focused on his results instead of the incredible planning and details he usually focused upon. With the freedom from details, he opened his senses to his entire cradle and his mind was able to enjoy the entirety of it in a way he'd never done before. He watched on with eager hope, seeking out what the results would be.

It was an entirely independent ritual, and he could only watch on to see the results. They were lackluster, at best. But Aelthron did not feel sadness, only excitement. In some ways, he'd gone at this in reverse. Epiphanies were rare and incredible, but they did require a basic understanding of the world for the development of insight. How could one have insight on the movement's rivers if one did not study and know it. In the time he'd developed his second schooling system, he'd seen hundreds experience epiphanies, most from those who were dedicated to their craft. They were small epiphanies; not into the dao or great power, but still epiphanies none the less. A baker who understood his craft that bit more and his breads took on almost esoteric qualities in its taste. A hunter who'd honed his craft to such a degree that he was soon able to almost predict where animals would travel with nothing more than a glimpse of a leaf or a brush of a branch. A swordsman who spent the entirety of her life with her father's blade who now knew it so completely that it was almost magic how she was able to wield it.

Yet, their epiphanies were too narrow. Change the oven and the baker lost his epiphany. The hunter lost her skill when the incredible wealth she'd gained hunting her backyard forest allowed her to move to another greater city. She died to the creature she'd always hunted, unable to read the new forest as she'd done the old. The swordsman became a cripple when her father's sword broke. Even reforging left her mediocre.

These left Aelthron gritting his teeth with frustration, but he immediately understood the cause. It was vital that people could apply their knowledge across broader situations and his people did not have the chance. They were poor, and poverty locked them into limited experiences. The few exceptions were rare, mortals fighting immortal level enemies gave few times for epiphany to strike and if it did, it was a good chance to die and poverty gave limited experience. They needed education. They needed broad experiences.

For this, he hoped this new effort would give his people the foundations necessary to develop and grow; to push their knowledge to broader vistas and allow for generalized epiphanies. Specialized epiphanies were great, even still a boon, but only useful if one had the time to experience a variety, and mortals rarely had time.

So, when his ritual settled in and wrapped each plane in its grasp, he watched on with hope and excitement. However, while all in the cradle had felt the impact of his work, few understood and even fewer attempted to discover the results. Those few were enough, and soon his gift to the cradle was revealed to the planes.

People began diving into his offer, his efforts rewarded with excellence as his people began to grow and develop. His ritual, designed to grow and modify itself, responded to the goal of developing the people and put forth new methods and growth, responding to the people's growth with ever evolving and empowering developments.

Aelthron watched on for a time, pride and hope growing until unsettling guests arrived from the greater cycle, the rest of the Starry Path. The emperor of the Starry Path had arrived, the greatest and singular power of the entire vast swath of stars and Aelthron warred within himself. The bitter annoyance of being trapped twisted through him even as memories of friendship left a bittersweet taste within him. And through it all, his muted tongue was unable to respond.

* * *

"Hello, old friend. What have you done now?"

The emperor sighed softly to himself, bittersweet emotions coiling up through his stomach. He didn't expect too much of a response but blinked in some surprise when an odd blue box of flickering shapes, curves, and morphing objects appeared before him. It was a strange thing to see, the twisting and curving of what looked nothing more than like a mass of squirming worms filled the screen in odd distortions and the bizarre. Aelthron sighed.

"It's good to see that you are well, my friend. But I can no longer understand you."

The box disappeared and was replaced by a much shorter visual oddity. The emperor grinned before the grin faded into a bittersweet grimace once again.

"Still cannot understand you, my friend."

The box disappeared and did not return, but the emperor could almost feel the warm camaraderie that came from long years of friendship settle into place between them, and the emperor took the time to enjoy the moment before he sighed once again and turned to his duty.

"What have you done, my friend? What have you done?"

The emperor turned his gaze to his entourage and gave an order, "Figure it out, both the results and the ritual."

"Yes, master!" echoed out from thousands of throats, all amazingly now the same and the emperor could only smile with some awe at the oddity of such a new thing. Taglisea… she was amazing. How did she do this?

* * *

Aelthron watched on, bittersweet warmth replaced soon by some worry and concern as the emperor turned to discovering what Aelthron had done. There was nothing he could do, and he watched on over the century or two as the emperor's people bent to discovering his efforts. The results were quick to be found, with the emperor and his people first confused, then shocked, then amazed by his good work. For a time, Aelthron basked in pride at what he'd accomplished. It was no library, the holy grail of that all sought, but it was very good, and seeing how his emperor responded to the results was a joy to watch. A certain schadenfreude burned through him as he realized that while they could see what he'd done, they were incapable of discovering it. His ritual had been burnt, not in the soils of a plane, but across the entire cradle itself, the planes themselves, even the great cradle was used in its creation; a central node from which the other planes were guided and embedded as the very sub-nodes of the ritual itself. The efforts to discover the ritual fell flat, but the results were powerful and obvious.

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As the failure to discover the ritual grew and became ever more assured, Aelthron felt both a relief and frustration. His desire to show off his genius was cut off by the inability of the emperor's incompetent ritualists. It made sense as Aelthron had been the emperor's best and Aelthron had been unable to find any adequate or competent apprentice.

His relief came from the fact that without knowing or understanding the ritual, there would be very little that the emperor could do to bring about meaningful changes to his efforts. Centuries passed and soon the emperor grew ever more impatient, the efforts proving a struggle against what Aelthron had accomplished. Then, the emperor put forth a demand. Aelthron did not know what it was, the emperor had called all his people back from the cradle for a few days before they all returned with a greater fervor.

The emperor's return, this time, was not one of nostalgia, nor was it pleasant. Aelthron watched with growing discomfort as the emperor carved out a place within his heartsite and deadened it from Aelthron's sight and senses. People and supplies began to enter and exit rapidly; some great working was going to be done and Aelthron's anxiety began to climb. As soon as the location began to be hidden from his site, Aelthron worked with rapid effort to take in all he could remember. He counted all the people and explored into any storage devices the people had although he was very cautious of anything in or near the emperor. Luckily, the emperor often remained aloof from all, no longer having found any his equal.

He dedicated a portion of his memory to cataloguing the location, its terrain, and any materials or resources in the location. He even took the effort to memorize the details do several tens of thousands of meters into the earth, wishing to know if there was anything below that had captured the emperor's interest.

The tiny location proved a boon, and he was able to quickly trap into memory all the details of that location including all who were inside. It had been a frantic few moments as he turned his prodigious mind to capturing the entirety of that location into his mind but then it became almost easy. It was simple to count as each person came into the location and as they left. It was easy to dip into and keep track of all resources as they entered and left the location. And it was simple to pass off this work to a small spirit he dedicated, not carving it from his spirit but sectioning off a portion for temporary usage. It freed him to maintain his thoughts and capabilities to singular tasks if at a slightly weaker capability. The spirit would be able to maintain permanent watch, and it did so with ease.

As the resources came in and the people grew, Aelthron felt his fear grow. His focus dipped into each passing person, their belongings, and into any special bags they were carrying, searching deep within. He had to spin off another temporary spirit to evaluate and track every resources coming into and leaving the region. That proved quite a bit more taxing, but turned into a huge boon as the materials left behind began to paint an obvious picture of things to come. It soon became clear that this group was preparing a ritual. The materials were obvious, at least in that respect, but he struggled to pinpoint the exact ritual necessary.

For a time, he was rather certain it was some form of curse ritual, its potency powerful and the typical components for an empty blessing equal to the curses' potency, of course, included in with the materials, but as additional materials compounded and were brought in, Aelthron found himself unable to ascertain the specifics. It almost seemed like four rituals were prepared, at minimum, if not more, but the purpose for four eluded Aelthron. Two were necessary, especially for a blessing to mitigate the karmic rebound of a curse, but the extra materials pointed to beyond two.

Three… maybe five rituals? Or… only four, but… ? One is definitely a twinned blessing and curse… the blessing to mitigate the curse. That would make sense. But… why one… maybe three more? A single curse to undo the work I have done would be enough! There shouldn't…

Then a powerful group, carefully protected by an incredible force, came through obviously protecting a singular individual. Aelthron quickly scanned every person, but quickly dismissed the belongings of almost everyone one there. The guards carried obvious materials for their own development or use and the support and staff of the guarded appeared the same. The singular exception was an individual that seemed unusually nervous, twitchy fear keeping the man jumpy. Aelthron's perception skimmed the materials the man held and withdrew with confusion and worry. Nothing matched what the man was carrying, and when the man left only moments later, this time with nothing more than a token force, what had emptied from the man's spatial storage only added to Aelthron's confusion. Nothing the man had couriered to the location made sense.

If I separate out… yeah… that makes sense. It would be what I would do. It could corrupt the work I'm doing, depending on the intent of the ritual given. A corruption ritual definitely, and it's twinned blessing to protect against karmic debt. But, what is…

Fear of the unknown drove Aelthron more than the corruption ritual soon to take place. He could only hope that his ritual and bound spirit to the ritual would be powerful and flexible enough to defend against the curse. He scrambled for a time to discover some way to defend his work, but ultimately there were too many things the emperor could do and simply not enough information for him to figure anything out. Instead, he prepared as best he could, recuperating his mana as much as possible and developed what plans he could, including several rituals that could be used during if Aelthron thought they could be used. He waited with consternation and fear.

* * *

The emperor watched on with calm, viewing the rituals and work with growing boredom. He knew little of such work and cared even less for it. Taglisea had refused to come help, but offered some materials that would prove effective. She did seem quite bitter and he wisely stayed far from her. He'd, of course, visited her at her home on several occasions, but she remained aloof and distant. The emperor sighed and dismissed his concerns for Taglisea when his adjutant for this event arrived.

"We are ready, sire."

"Excellent. The empowerment is prepared?"

"Yes, majesty. The empowerment is prepared."

The emperor twisted his lips, "And this… is still the wisest course of action?"

The man who was in charge of preparing the rituals stepped forward with a bow and replied, "It will be excellent, sire. We will empower his efforts at teaching to an overwhelming level and in so doing, his ritual will be… overly exacting."

The emperor pursed his lips bitterly and with frustration. Aelthron was always the one to deal with such things and he was unable to adequately judge whether this was possible. But he didn't have Aelthron's expertise so could only accept. He nodded and continued.

"And it's twinned curse?"

"Prepared and ready, sire."

"And the curse against Aelthron's rituals? You are certain of the curse, then? And its twinned blessing is prepared?"

This time, the ritualist replied with excitement and no small amount of awe, "It is incredible, sire. We have never seen its like! If… I could know who discovered such, I would beg of them to teach me, sire!"

Taglisea. The emperor did not respond but took it as good news and waved his hand, "Then continue."

The excited ritualist cut himself off and turned away, beginning. As always, the curse was first, then the blessing. The other blessing to reinforce Aelthron's efforts could have been done first, but the emperor knew Aelthron's skill with rituals would make him a formidable foe. A ritual the man had never seen before would be better used than the key reinforcing work to neuter Aelthron's efforts. The curse would bring almost no reaction from the flow of mana, but the two blessings would. A surprising unknown blessing would likely draw Aelthron's incredible focus and distract long enough for the final easily identified blessing of Aelthron's ritual to be completed and formalized. Curses always came before the blessing, but as always, they usually would rarely affect the flow of mana. But this second blessing… it would be powerful, costly, and incredibly impactful upon the mana field. Hopefully, that would leave Aelthron crippled with indecision, then the response would be too late.

* * *

Aelthron watched on, tension growing as the time for enacting the rituals would soon come, and when the subtle flow of mana belled out from the ritual site, and obvious ritual of blessing, Aelthron quickly ripped every bit of his capabilities back under his control but for the memory of the site and the memory of the materials taken along with the spirit to consult.

The curse was obvious, and coming first, it made complete sense. It would be the easiest way to interrupt the blessing curse combination, but ultimately would do little for him. If he wanted, he could make the enactment of the curse painful, karma rebounding upon the person cursing when the blessing was enacted by simply tweaking the curse slightly. But, the blessing would still complete, poisoning and crippling his work. If he wanted to protect what he'd created for his people, he would have to focus upon the curse. The blessing would offer the targets, the curse the effect. But if he could understand the curse quickly enough, possibly he could prepare some form of defense.

He spun off a small portion of his focus to attempt to understand the curse. However, he found himself mind boggled, it's working alien and bizarre. His curiosity pulled at him with overwhelming power and he found himself lost in understand the work, astounded by what he saw. But he could not even begin to comprehend its work or purpose. The blessing came after in a whisper, and Aelthron scrambled to understand at least the target. The frown came shortly after as he pulled it apart. It targets… soultethers! It was a typical blessing of general benefit, mostly in health and wealth, but such things were the norm simply because it was one of the cheapest and easiest of the blessings to enact. The curse would somehow be bound to the blessing, removing any karmic bonds.

Aelthron turned back to the curse with wild concern and dove into it. The curse was directed at him. It might have, by virtue of poor targeting, captured other soultethers but the development of blessed curses had been well formed and choosing your targets was something any novice ritualist had been trained well in. So, in all likelihood, it was purely targeting him. This he was certain of, but he had no meaningful way to understand what the curse had been. His thoughts pulled back to understanding the curse as it had formed, tracing its markings and work as best he could but found himself soon at a loss. This was an entirely new and different ritual, something he'd never seen before. Something never having been seen in this great cycle of billions upon billions of stars. He knew every ritual in the entirety of the Starry Path, and he'd never seen this. He'd never seen anything even remotely close to explain what its effects could possibly be.

So, when the third and last blessing blasted out from the ritual site in power overwhelming, Aelthron found himself poorly prepared to witness it let alone even analyze it. Where was the curse? Did I miss… His memory pulled in the very subtle eruption of mana that had spilled out and cursed himself from missing it. He turned instead to the latest blessing.

It's power was incredible, unlike any other blessing he'd seen. We haven't done blessings like this… not in… He scrambled to pull back the last remnants of his memory in a way he could evaluate but the blessing had already erupted out and the mana that had flowed from the residual mana paths long burned out the paths and flooded his entire cradle. His awe of such power turned primarily to despair when he saw the blessing encroach upon then flood his latest ritual and the spirit with incredible power.

Aelthron reacted quickly, but not quickly enough. He didn't know what he was looking at, although even with just a glimpse, he was rather certain this blessing was a modified and incredibly powerful version of the general blessing he himself had also received. Its power belied its different purpose, but no one could say Aelthron was anything but an excellent ritualist. It only took moments for Aelthron to recognize it's purpose, only a moment more to understand the danger, then quickly flood the mana flow with structure mana in response.

It was ingenious, actually. And almost Aelthron stood on with awe as he watched the blessing work. It was a truly perfect response. His blessing would be empowered and increased in capability, but at the expense of expectation of work from his people. They would need a level of skill and work that would be impossible in light of this blessing. They could still take the teaching, but perfection was now required. There was something else hidden deep within the blessing that Aelthron noticed but was unable to quite grasp and the demand for perfection seemed such an obvious target that it concerned Aelthron more as the lives of his people, now mortals, would never be long enough to meaningfully perfect their efforts to be acceptable by his work. Perfection could easily be seen as a blessing, as a skill and work that was perfected, it would be better. A simple yet deadly blessing.

Aelthron worked at it blindly, struggling to mitigate the results and with some relief, he stepped back with a sigh. The original curse and strange blessing were now long gone from memory and there was little to do with them, their mana flows complete and embedded with his cradle. There was little he could do with the last blessing either, the mana flows finalized in their working as well, although he was able to greatly mitigate the perfection needed to complete his rituals teachings and thus develop ones skills. He'd also expanded the time necessary to prepare, allowing for greater times of practice, but still, its work would definitely change how his people could develop.

* * *

The emperor remained in the locked space for a time, taking reports of the results. He did not stay long, remaining only a year and no more, but the results proved powerful and devastating. With that certainty, he returned to his efforts to escape from this prison that held him trapped; the vast void that surrounded his Starry Path.

His people stayed behind for only another decade or two, then returned over the next century. They stopped coming when the reports showed just how powerful and crippling their work had been. The emperor knew little of it, but for several quick reports revealing the efficacy of their efforts.

He only left two commands behind. A new and unique guard to be put into place to keep watch upon Aelthron and his cradle and one last powerful work of mana. He blinded Aelthron to the location where the ritual was enacted and placed guards upon it. Aelthron would never see or know it.

* * *

And so, with some fear, Aelthron watched his people cautiously over the next century, his worry proving true as his efforts revealed just how corrupted they had become. It was confusing, at first, but then it became blaringly and terrifyingly obvious. Soon, his training ritual grew out of fashion quicker and quicker as those capable of using it grew scarcer and unmotivated. It was a punishing system, now a tool that destroyed ones efforts, not helped it.

It seemed that as people took advantage of his teaching system to learn and grow, they learned what was taught. However, once a certain threshold had been reached, the system would enact some form of test. This test was hidden, only for the taker to see; an excellent protection for development of masters of their craft. However, as people took the test and were taken in to perform their test, they would return with memories lost and all skill removed, and Aelthron raged. The test pulled people in and very few passed. Those who did, were excellent, genius above their peers just as the blessing was to do. However, so many more failed than not and those who failed all found their memory of the event taken from their minds.

This wasn't the curse, however. The curse was that not only did they lose the memory of the test, those who'd failed the test also lost their skills. Everything they had put towards developing lost absolutely as they were returned to efforts akin to that of a child. Master swordsman left the test cutting themselves picking up the blade. Grandmaster magicians came out, blubbering as children, tears streaming down their cheeks as mana slipped from their grasped as assuredly as a pauper without magical training. Everyone lost their skills and efforts and his people were ripped of thousands and hundreds of thousands of grand masters and masters. Even novices and apprentices with years spent in preparing their skills found themselves returned to the first days of their efforts, a brand new six month apprentice of greater skill and capability than their own half a decade or decade of developing their skills.

And Aelthron raged. For a time, Aelthron remained lost in bitter anger even as his efforts slowly fell from style then vanished from use as no one was prepared to gamble on years of training and learning to be pulled into a training test whenever his teaching system deemed they were ready for it. So, his people stopped using his system, training returning to learning from their peers, friends, and family. They could not trust to learn even a single thing from the system for once the system had been invoked, it tracked your development and training, and it pulled you into its learning methods, including any testing.

Aelthron's rage did not last long, turning cold with deliberate vision. First, he turned his thoughts to the ritual that had been prepared. The emperor had long left his cradle, returning a sense of peace to him, but the location where the ritual had been performed remained blinded to him. That did not mean he was foolish as to not keep watch up on it, and as with all things, as time passed, the emperor's commands became lost in time and lost in the doing of them as those command grew lazy and lost the vision and purpose of the work. Centuries passed, then millennia, and son people forgot, grew lazy, and no longer took their duties with the responsibility expected of them. Guards no longer remained daily, or even monthly, and soon not even yearly.

Aelthron watched on with diligence, learning of when the next rotation would change, the next guard would come, and when people would leave. And with careful preparation, in the time between guard changes when the next guards would come and memory of what once was became lost in the mists of time, Aelthron acted.

A bubble of power encapsulated the entire ritual, the land ripped from its place in and spirited away. In its place, what had been was returned as best as Aelthron's memory could return it. The bubble dove deep into the depths of the cradle, protected by Aelthron's power and preserved. And what could pass as a doppleganger of the place was left in its place. Aelthron could only hope that what he replaced it with was close enough that people would not know. It had been why Aelthron made certain that the new guards to come had never seen it before, as best as he could determine it.

With tense fear, he watched on as the new guards came. Some exclamation of supposed changes were revealed, but the guards reports never made it to their superiors, an easy thing for Aelthron to do within his heartsite. And he watched on over the next century, then millennia with slowly burgeoning relief. And even that, soon, was lost from his mind as he turned his efforts back to his people once again.

He did not give up on his dream to empower his people and since he still had his teaching system, it would be foolish not to take advantage of it. If people had to be nigh perfect before they could take his new and 'improved' teaching from his ritual, then they would be. He began developing a system of exacting development and skill focused training. As each individual chose a skill or focus, this system would give feedback to everyone revealing their training as an explicit feedback on what they were developing and Aelthron made sure to tie in the expected skills his old teaching ritual demanded. With this, each individual would know when their skills were perfected and at the expected and demanded level for his cursed and remade teaching ritual.

Aelthron prepared it carefully, testing it numerous times, and this time, developed it slowly over millennia, even longer. He could not afford to draw the attention of the emperor any longer so prepared a new method of enacting rituals. A ritual that lasted millennia upon millennia, something he could now easily afford, allowing the ritual to settle into his system with a slow but empowering effort that released its mana in a swelling then receding tide over generations rather than the shockwave that thundered throughout the great cycle in a massive tidal wave.

The work continued unabated and Aelthron grew more certain of his results, his pride at a work well done bringing for excitement at what could be. Only a single intense moment relating to the ritual occurred in the long time it took to fully empower and enact it, but Aelthron dealt with it easily. So easily, in fact, Aelthron remembered little of what had happened. It was a mana fluctuation that shifted his work slightly but he easily controlled it and it proved quite inconsequential. His thoughts were much better focused upon his efforts and so he modulated his ritual against the mana fluctuation then basically forgot about it once the fluctuation ended.

When the ritual was complete, Aelthron watched on with glee as people quickly noticed the new gift given to them, but that glee ended rapidly when the results detonated amongst his people like the plague. It didn't take long for Aelthron to see what had failed. The skills he'd concentrated as a singular testing set as his teaching ritual demanded somehow ripped themselves into a conglomerate that only allowed their use for specific individuals. Only combatants could use weaponry, and even specific weaponry at that. Knives and daggers became a thing only fighters could use, except for some small few who needed such tools in their craft: chefs, tailors, and clothworkers. But even then, the chefs and tailors found themselves unable to use a knife as a weapon at all. Tools leapt from people's hands, skills fled from people's minds, and soon skills became ripped from the hands of the people.

Aelthron couldn't allow his shock to remain long, bitter rage sweeping through him when he realized what had happened. Somehow, skills had become restricted to specific groups of people. Only those who used tools or skills could learn them. What defined who they were or what group seemed esoteric, but was in some ways related to what his learning ritual had demanded be learned for a specific task or effort. But this was worse. It removed skills from the hands of all people, relegating it to only a few who were somehow specific to the skill's purpose.

That worse quickly went too deadly as children were born and were no longer able to learn any skill as they had no purpose. Famine quickly came as farmers died and their children were no longer able to use the skills they could not pass on to the children for their food. Merchants languished, soldiers grew old and died, and monsters swelled without any to keep them in check.

Aelthron panicked, and dove into figuring out what was happening. It soon became obvious. Anyone could gain the skills, but for a reason he could not fathom, his ritual had failed and triggered in such a way that people had to have a basic purpose to gain the skill. Some very small few were able to learn of this, and they excelled rapidly, as they passed on their skills to their children in the only way they knew how; with fake tools. Wooden swords badly made play looms and rapidly devised leatherworking methods with precut leather and premade holes gave enough of a rudimentary definition to the children that they were able to gain the definition of what it meant to be in that purpose that the skills would unlock.

Soon, people were learning a wide variety of skills and Aelthron's panic was washed away by his relief. Some few took on these new skills and reveled in the feedback as they developed and grew in them. But that soon led to a difficulty for Aelthron. The people did not know which set of skills were needed to pass his teaching ritual and so, his teaching tool was still essentially ignored. Some few still tried to use the his teaching ritual to mixed results but every once and a while, one would excel and their fame would reinvigorate interest in his teaching ritual until a string of failures left an overwhelming amount of failures crippled and drove fear into the hearts of the people.

Fear also kept him paralyzed for a time, his worry gnawing away at his confidence as for the first time in a long time, his failure brought about terrifying consequences to his people. After he overcame his fear, panic drove him to react immediately but then he forcibly calmed himself. He still didn't understand why his ritual had failed nor how it had failed and he had to remember he essentially had infinite time to accomplish his task. So, Aelthron turned to trying to understand his failure yet all his efforts couldn't reveal what had happened. He just couldn't understand what had happened. All his preparation had been perfect and the initiation and completion of his ritual should have been perfect. But, some unusual mana fluctuation had disrupted and crashed his ritual to unusual results. He studied the fluctuation for a time, but ultimately came to the conclusion that he had no control over mana fluctuations and turned his thoughts to how he could return his teaching ritual to use for his people, then finally the epiphanies.

The answer proved quite easy. He had to find a way to group the skills in such a way that the people would develop the skills needed to successfully develop past each test in his teaching ritual. With each successfully passed test, his people would become increasingly educated in understanding the dao of their choice. With understanding came increasingly powerful chances to gain epiphanies into their dao. A virtuous cycle leading to rapidly increasing growth leading to increased understanding of their dao, allowing them to experience epiphanies which would empower their knowledge and growth.

Even as his thoughts turned towards this, Aelthron's fear fell before the certainty of his plan, even more excited than he had been when he'd only intended to develop options for epiphanies. His plans were increasingly proving themselves to be reinforcing each other with synchronous results he hadn't intended but were lighting his thoughts with incredible possibilities.

As before, he spent even more time in preparation and cautious development, accruing his necessary materials, even growing some of them now that he had a heartsite. The ability to create the exact material perfectly matching his needs was an experience that left him giddy with should be incredible results. He put his thoughts into developing even a more comprehensive result than simply grouping his skills in a meaningful fashion. He added a feedback system to his people to understand what he was creating, adding in a special system to respond to any questions, and even began quantifying the dao for them, at least for the most basic of daos.

With that, his imagination went wild and with the incredible amount of time available to him, he began quantifying, explaining, exploring, and defining everything he could, from skills to jobs, as he began to call them. With a few more slight tweaks, he began adding in development of mana, mental, and physical skills in the greatest synergistic builds he could think of. He even, with a significant need to overhaul his original plans, Aelthron allowed for the development and growth of personal or different jobs unique to each individual. Later, he recognized the possibility of even merging or creating jobs that were powerfully synchronous so had to work on increasing the scope of his work to allow for multiple jobs.

That required new changes, incorporating a method to increase the acquisition of jobs and increased amounts of jobs. Allowing it from the start proved ruinously costly, so he had to allow for a longer more difficult start easily mitigated with a bit of effort, especially with those who could have parents to teach them well, supporting them in their growth.

As his thoughts traced through various options, Aelthron came to understand more and more just how incredible his vision was becoming and ultimately the cost it would incur, but with each thought and development, he became ever more certain of just how incredible his people's future could be. He couldn't return immortality to them, but an almost equal abiltity, even possibly matching an immortal's power, Aelthron began to find himself enthralled by the possibilities.

He soon recognized that the cost for his new job system would greatly outgrow what he could pay. There wasn't enough mana in the greater cycle, let alone his cradle, for such a thing, so began working to balance karma. He could not offer such a gift for free, growth now came at a cost. Incorporating this greatly reduced the cost significantly but this was mitigated with the ability to increase growth rates for his people. The growth multiplier was no longer static, but could be modified by his people to greatly increase the end results.

He lost himself as possibilities began to dance in his thoughts, and millennia upon millennia passed. Memories of his epiphanies faded from the people, and almost so too the teaching ritual with its spirit. But he could not free himself from the almost rabid drive to create such beautiful perfection. He began borrowing cultivation methods, exploring the path of bodily empowerment, as best as he remembered them. He stole from Sylnarvion shamelessly although not very well as Aelthron's understanding of cultivation was week.

With greater success, he stole Karnagur's magical development theories and trained his system to prepare his people to be great mages. Aelthron himself was a great mage, although his ritual capabilities far outclassed his magery.

He included Tsnalla's understanding of space, time, and distance. He incorporated the creation of internal spatial worlds, finding he link easily between Sylnarvion's cultivation development of internal power, strength, and world. He didn't directly link the two, allowing the system to be proactive and allow his people to explore the possible synergies that might exist.

Integrated with magery, he released his knowledge of ritual magic, incorporating a deep and well explored complete knowledge of all he knew of ritualistic magery. He was less versed in combat rituals and siegeworks, but not incompetent. He incorporated all he could think of into his development of his new job system, and when complete, sat back with grim joy and what he'd finished.

It was vast, deep beyond measure, and most definitely required some form of spirit to guide and run it. He spent some long time evaluating the possibilities, even of being the spirit of this system as well, but finally dismissed that. It would be unwise to allow such and linking this work with the heartsite and the curse upon it as well could easily destroy what he'd intended for this great work.

So, with effort, he turned towards carving out the spirit he would need to run this great ritual from his own being. Unlike what he'd down with the previous teaching and skills systems, he did not separate the spirit from himself. Already, he was deeply wounded from the effort and even the millenia of time had not returned him to health from the two spirits he'd carved from his soul. He had no soul magic to repair or heal himself but neither did he believe separating the spirit would be wise. He would create one, still linked to himself, but capable of the work without him. Even if he succumbed to insanity from the loneliness of infinite life, the spirit would remain behind, hale and whole. But for now, he could incorporate new changes and further develop this ultimate training tool.

The effort to create the spirit for this new system was harrowing, but completed without much struggle or worry as little needed to be done. He completed it with ease, although some small failures plagued the effort and the spirit proved much closer to him than he'd initially had prepared or expected. Still, the spirit was ready and could easily function independently from him and he took that as a great win. He'd done very well considering this was the third such spirit carved from his soul. The damage to his being must have been quite remarkable by now, but he did not allow that to deter him and soon, it was time.

As before, he enacted his work with slow deliberate effort so as to not draw the attention of the emperor. And things went incredibly well. Twice, mana surges fluctuated the flow of mana and required some small frantic work to bring the small changes to his ritual under control, but they proved inconsequential, one even proving rather beneficial, if Aelthron were to be honest, healing his soul by no small amount as well as drawing the spirit of the newly created job system even closer to Aelthron's ego, while still maintaining the spirits separate and powerful identity.

Near the end of the ritual, right when its culmination was coming to fruition, one last mana fluctuation shuddered through his ritual but Aelthron had long grown used to it, fluctuations seeming to be the norm if the efforts were long and drawn out. The ritual flared, powerful and beautiful in equal measure, awe inspiring to the point of drawing fear from the observer, even Aelthron. It was incredible. And soon, the new effort spread across his cradle with rapid speed and even quicker results. And Aelthron watched on with gleeful pride as people began to notice his new job system.

His glee did not last long. Three critical failures rapidly proved themselves and Aelthron raged. Somehow, one of the mana fluctuations which had originally been tested as positive, drawing the spirit of the job system closer to him, revealed itself to actually have been a linkage of the curse. His people were blinded to the system and unable to comprehend it.

Secondly, the skills, originally grouped within each job to be easily defined for the users, locked themselves to each job instead. It quickly became apparent that none could take on any new skill if it wasn't already included into the job as expected. And finally, several jobs formed that left Aelthron retreating in incredible fear. Somehow, his efforts had revealed a job that allowed one to gain control of the system, and ultimately control over Aelthron himself, and he could only retreat in terror.

Three critical failures such as this proved demoralizing, and Aelthron struggled to bring his mind and worries under control. His people were even worse off than before, his efforts to develop his people's skills now locking them to a specific job and even hiding the feedback system he'd originally incorporated to explain the skills. The teaching system still functioned, but his carefully developed descriptions of each skill and the feedback of their development became useless. Wild inexplicable shapes covered the interface he'd developed and people now could not understand what they were seeing.

In fear, he turned his efforts to develop some kind of control, creating another ritual to keep the job that was revealed that could control him locked behind something that would make the job impossible to gain. Ultimately, he chose to lock it behind a new job that would literally drive anyone insane until they accepted their own death. He hid this job, making sure it was impossible to find, but new that people could still find themselves trapped with such a job. Fear of being enslaved, however, drove him to extremes to protect himself.

And in worry over how his rituals seemed to be very susceptible to mana fluctations due to their long enacting window, he decided to return to a rather fast and immediate ritual using the simplest of rituals used by all in the great cycle: twinned blessing and cursing rituals of the most simplistic kind.

The curse created the change while the blessing targeted. With very careful preparation, Aelthron was able to create a ritual that was concise, very small, and would do little to disrupt the equilibrium of the greater cycle. The ritual flared, mana burning outward in a barely felt ripple as the curse defined the act. None would be affected, so it was rather simple to create a curse with essentially no karmic value. The blessing would tie the result of the curse to the target necessary and as with the curse, Aelthron made certain that the curse would cost almost nothing. Its enactment likely wouldn't even be felt within the cradle itself, let alone to other stars. He did have to stretch out this ritual as well, but only took a few extra days to start and coral it to completion unlike the years long effort of the other two.

Still, even in this, a mana fluctuation flared and Aelthron pursed his lips in annoyance that the mana flows were so unstable. He dove into the ritual, making certain that his insanity job still created a barrier between his administrative jobs and what was available to his people before turning to check the rest.

That proved fatal as he quickly saw his job system once again inflicted with a deadly curse that greatly increased the cost of growth, and Aelthron watched on with shock and a growing sense of dread. Something was wrong, very wrong. Something was corrupting his efforts at enacting his rituals, but for the life of him, he couldn't find anything.

Aelthron turned away from anything else, for a time, when the fall out for his failures became quite evident. His people were no longer able to even understand the skills nor use them, each skill now locked behind a specific job and even a specific level for that skill. Where once his people were free to use any skill, then cursed by his first failure to only use a skill they'd practiced, now they were cursed to only use skill specific to a job. Any tool or skill included with any job was removed from the collectively consciousness and abilities of his people. Only the job allowed that skill. Skills offered no feedback and even blocked progress into mastery, and his job system offered no feedback of any kind, the efforts of his spirit now closely twined with his original curse: none could understand any method of communication of mana kind.

And his epiphanies now were forever blocked, impossible for such short lived poorly educated mortals to ever achieve. Finally, his job system not only blocked off skills completely, now they were locked behind a growth that was even much greater in cost that before, his efforts poisoning his people even more than before.

Aelthron found himself retreating in fear that grew even worse as his efforts were not as hidden as he'd hoped. The emperor's influence and command returned to his cradle once again, even if he did not return. Aelthron could only find that as relief, although ritualists poured through the great cycle's gate once again, dozens upon dozens of rituals from the vast number of stars in the Starry Path, obviously hear on the emperor's command.

The working this time was simplistic, the most generic of all curses. That proved deadly as the basic nature of the curse allowed it to target the most vulnerable of locations, but it was essentially incredibly weak because of it. The new ritualists did not understand what Aelthron had done, but with this ritual, they did not need to.

The curse, twinned with a blessing, quickly fired off, and it did not take long for the ritual to reveal just how cursed it had become. His people now were offered a 'blessing' at their coming of age and it took Aelthron a long time to recognize the poison hidden within the offered blessing.

At the cost of their growth capabilities, and ultimately almost all future growth, the blessing offered the new adult the chance to gain a significant amount of growth in their current job if they so choose. That made the curse almost simple to develop, allowing people to choose it or not. It cost the ritualists almost nothing in karmic backlash.

But Aelthron did nothing. Four times he'd tried to bring about positive change, and three times his efforts crippled the results. Why am I failing so completely? What … it started after the rituals… what…

Fear settled in his gut and Aelthron retreated. And so, his rituals fell into uselessness, becoming nothing but a footnote in history, then a legend, then a myth, and soon forgotten by all except some one or two strange knowledge seekers of the bizarre, strange, and impossible. And no one believed them. Myths of training methods and skills development faded from memory and was replaced by an incomprehensible blue screen. His efforts stymied time and again with seemingly simple mana fluctuations that were not enough to explain such precise flukes. And now, the emperor's ritualists had come to make his current system ultimately a curse. And he retreated.

His spirit took over maintain the system, but ultimately proved meaningless. None understood it. Epiphanies languished, skills became inscrutable and dangerous to explore with the help of his teaching system for fear of loosing them, jobs became locked behind increasingly convoluted series of other jobs, locked by what a child's parents had, or even ripped from them as people began to learn to steal whatever was possible to be stolen. And ultimately, even the jobs became a curse, trapping entire families in its grip for generation upon generation.

And Aelthron became trapped by his fear, unable to understand how his rituals had failed again and again, so completely despite being the greatest ritualist in existence. And he fled, seeking retreat in impossible fantasies, unable to withstand the stark never ending years utterly alone. With one last look into the skies and at the great cycle gate, Aelthron bid his goodbye to the Starry Path and fled.