Misbegotten Memories

Chapter 283

The others accepted his apology for overreacting with good grace.  They seemed to understand his explanation that he was no longer questing and therefore less eccentric in his behavior.  Hector didn’t think they were particularly worried about his outburst.  They were busy making arrangements with Wayne for their resources.

“I’m not eating humans,” Hector said when asked about his preferences.  The others were specifying cuts of meat like psychopaths.

“You can have more of the Fufu, then,” Isabel offered.

“Sure.”

“I will give the currency to my aunt so she can exchange it.  Unless you changed your mind about going back to Bentley?”  Dorian looked hopeful for a moment before something in Hector’s expression caused him to raise his hands in surrender.

When he returned to his floor of the tower, he found Darius relaxing by the window.  “Are you still angry with me?”

“No,” he lied.  “But in the future, please don’t force me into situations like that.”

“We should avoid Tian then.”

“That is a safe bet.”  Hector sighed.  “Are you going to have Riley eat the meat?”

“I will insist she consume a core.  The meat can be her choice.”

Hector nodded.  “I assume she is with Siegfried at the moment?”

“Presumably.”

“For a while there, I thought you were sweet on Fiona.”

Darius grinned.  “That was what people were supposed to think.”  His joy faded.  “Fiona and Owam signaled each other by holding their fingers on different parts of their torso.  I don’t know what messages they exchanged, but they used the same signs.  Their mutual hostility was supposed to mislead everyone.”

“Except you suspect everyone.”

“Not everyone.”

“Who do you trust?  Me and Riley?  Or maybe just Riley, given how you kept me ignorant.”

“I trust you to be virtuous, Hector.  Circumstances required a different approach this time.”

In his mind, he replayed the moment Darius tossed Fiona before him towards the door and threw out a chaos bolt.  He’d never seen it land, due to the scuffle that broke out behind him.  But Hector knew Fiona had been slain in that attack.  Whether or not she ranked as most dangerous on the opposing force, Fiona had treated them all like fools.  Darius did not forgive such disrespect.

Perhaps a change of scenery would be good for his friends.  “Do you think the two of you would ever join the Reconquest?  I can get you a job following me around.  You’d gain more energy than you spend.”

Darius frowned in thought.  “It has been too long since I called any place home.  Some dying world where I must obey my superiors cannot compare to this world.”

Hector returned to his room to cultivate after that.  He still had a few days before he was due to report back to Aes.  The next morning, Wayne gave him a bowl of fish stew over Fufu for breakfast.  That meal stole away part of his energy reserves to enhance his body.  More and more as he leveled, Hector was noticing the drain required to upgrade consumed nutrients.  It was particularly noticeable when he ate something strong enough to benefit him.  His body seemed to have a starvation mode for cosmic energy that let him be more efficient when resources weren’t available.

While he was finishing up the meal, Esther sat across from him.  “I hear Isabel is going to Aes with you and is going to be part of your security detail.  I want the same deal.”

“Sure,” he said.

Esther sat back with a huge smile on her face.  “I didn’t think I’d go back to that world again.  They were saying it is getting close to its end.  But something changed recently.  No one knows what is going on, but the senior officers are suddenly optimistic.”

The Reconquest had received money and the promise of soldiers, he knew.  Hector shrugged.  “The Miasma Mitigation Project certainly doesn’t hurt.”

“So… are you stationed on the same Stronghold as Matthias?”

Hector fought back a smirk.  “Does that impact whether you join me?”

“I’m just curious who I’ll know there.”

“Matthias is stationed on Gamma, same as me.  He spends a lot of time traveling, though.  The Miasma Mitigation Project has plenty of ground to cover.”

Esther left him to make arrangements for her departure.  Apparently, Wayne would be acting as the administrator of Tian Tower in the absence of Matthias and Esther.  Should Wayne be gone for a period of time, there was an advisory board made up of long term tenants who could appoint a temporary replacement.

Hector spent several hours in the dungeon with Riley and Darius to speed up his energy restoration, then returned home in the evening.  He’d arranged to teach Isabel the Sweaty Fire Technique for strengthening domains.  In exchange, she showed him a technique of the Azure Spear Maidens that could train auras.  It was the Bursting Dam Technique and consisted of packing a relaxed aura with as much energy as possible, letting it leak out all over the place.  It was, by far, the most inefficient cultivation technique he ever encountered.  But so long as he had energy, it would help him improve quickly and without any negative side effects.

Hector played around with the technique only for a small time.  Everything cost energy, it seemed.  He didn’t know if even his cultivation cheat was enough to power level his body, aura, and domain.  The Bursting Dam and Sweaty Fire techniques were so expensive he didn’t understand how a sane person had ever figured them out.  It was like old school oil tycoons lighting their cigars with hundred dollar bills.  So impractical in cost that the innovator had to be showing off their wealth.

There was an explanation for it, of course.  His chaos cultivation was ultimately inferior to the ability of the wealthy on Tian to purchase platinum elixirs.  The nobles had the same superpower as Batman… they were obscenely rich.  In moments they could gain a portion of the benefits someone else had labored for over an entire lifetime.  It just required that other person to die.  If you were a Lord, that wasn’t hard to afford for your descendants or favored servants.

As for those servants, they were placed in the same situation as Hector.  They were improperly trained in cultivation so that they could never take that ultimate step and sever themselves from external reality.  Worse than his own situation, they wouldn’t be able to escape a life of servitude.  They would forever be trapped by Amaratti society.  Leaving their Lord would make them a criminal.

The day before he left for Aes, Lord Zara found him to have an uncomfortable conversation.

“Hector, I have news you should know.”

“What is it?”

The Lord winced.  “I have entered into a relationship with Wayne.”

“Yeah, I saw that coming.”

“This may have consequences for you.  I believe my father provided you with techniques?”

“Sweaty Fire,” he confirmed.

Zara rapped her knuckles on the table.  “That is unfortunate.  He gave you a family secret.  You were supposed to be bound to me for life.  Because you are not, I’m worried that my father will want to ensure the technique does not spread.  In case that is too subtle… I suspect your life is at risk.  You should avoid Tian at all costs.  The Coalition Army as well, since you may encounter my father there.”

Hector rubbed his temples as he processed the situation.  “Will he look for me on Aes?”

“It is unlikely he would personally seek you.  Though if Xian scouts are ever spotted, you should move.”  Zara shook her head.  “Maybe he won’t send anyone after you.  Secrets are not so tightly guarded as they were before the Dream Engine widely shared them.  I’m also not in a rush to introduce Wayne.  Father will not approve of my choice.  He never does.”

“Is never telling him an option?”

Zara sniffed.  “He is my father, Hector.  Eventually he will ask and I will not lie.”

“Thank you for the advance notice, then.”

“Of course.  I do not wish any harm to befall you.  Though the two of us did not work out, I think quite highly of you as a person.”

He cultivated for most of the night.  The next morning, he brought Isabel and Esther with him to the staging grounds to step through one of Transit’s portals.  Hector almost informed the Sage about the potential situation with the Lord General, but decided to follow the chain of command.  Colonel Quinn should learn about the threat before their Sage civilian sponsor.

The three of them reported to the command center, registered their presence with the sergeant major, and then settled into the barracks.  Hector reconnected with some of the acquaintances he knew from his time with the Reconquest.  Many of them knew he rubbed shoulders with important figures and were trying to pump him for information on the new developments in the Reconquest.  None of the grunts had a clue what was happening, but the seismic shift in the operation was obvious.

Indeed, Hector would have known within just hours of his arrival that the funding issue had been resolved even without his prior knowledge.  The food served was higher quality.  Support staff were busy unboxing shiny new replacements for equipment.  Even the Xian were receiving low level resources.  One would have to be particularly oblivious not to realize that the Reconquest was drowning in credits.

When Matthias returned from a mission, he appeared happier than ever.  “Welcome back, Hector.  I trust your time off was productive.  Mine certainly was.  I’m really getting the feel for using my domain for chaos cultivation.  And I received a huge bonus for bringing in another heir of Volithur.  Andy is only level six, but he seems to be figuring things out.”

The chubby man beside Matthias nodded at Hector.  “So you’re the guy who improved the insight?  What’s the trick?”

Hector chuckled.  “Go crazy for a couple of years obsessing over intentions and being a good person.  If you survive the consequences of your own actions, you get a second glimpse.”

Andy raised a brow.  “That’s fine.  Keep your secrets if you want.”

“I would write down the exact method to share with every single heir of Volithur if I could.  But it doesn’t work that way.  Insights are personal.  There needs to be something to connect your ego to ultimate reality.”

“That’s not how Volithur’s insight worked,” Andy pointed out.

Hector considered that claim.  “Actually, you’re wrong.”

“Nothing connected Volithur to chaotic emergence.  He just studied the twin touch game, then saw the Lord General raise a transit sphere.  It was knowledge.”

“Volithur lived chaos.  He was constantly buffeted by the whims of people more powerful than himself.  They’d randomly help or harm him all the time.  His entire existence in the fifth household was defined by his ability to bring order out of the chaos that surrounded him.  His fascination with chaos being collapsed by resonance into normal reality was grounded in what he felt every day.”  Hector reasoned it out as he spoke.  Even if it came secondhand, Hector intimately knew the chaos of being a leaf on the winds.

Andy rolled his eyes.  “This guy improves his insight and all of a sudden starts talking like he’s an Arahant Sage.  Anyway, see you around, Hector.”