Elder Cultivator
Chapter 1316

Trapped inside a spatial cage, Anton was prepared to call upon any strength necessary to get free. He could destroy the devices maintaining this spatial prison with arrows of ascension energy, either directly breaking through or bypassing the shell around him. Alternatively, he could kill those at the controls with spectral energy. Either or both were ready to be brought into play at any moment, as well as calling upon power he couldn’t normally handle away from his bound stars.

In the worst case, he would forcefully bind the local star with one of his last remaining free stars. The star itself probably wouldn’t mind, but it went against his policy. However, letting himself and Bear Hug get killed also was against his policy.

Anton was ready to spring at any moment, and Bear Hug… was Bear Hug.

“Look, they stopped us from leaving! That means they want to be our friends so badly they can’t bear to lose track of us again!”

Such relentless positivity was hard to maintain. Bear Hug had seen enough of the wider world to know that things weren’t always so good, but they maintained a positive spirit regardless.

“You might be right,” Anton replied, giving Bear Hug a pat. At the very least, it didn’t seem that the people of Aretis wanted to kill them. At least not right away. Or perhaps they were uncertain if they could, which made Anton feel more secure. For the sake of those listening, he spoke aloud. “We are willing to come peacefully if you promise to treat us fairly.”

After a few moments of delay, they got a response. “Please wait for processing.” It was a different voice from before, indicating to Anton there were multiple people. Some of what happened might have been put in place by an automated system, but there should be humans involved as well. Anton could vaguely feel some of them… though he didn’t want to give away the limits of his sensory abilities. The spatial cage made it difficult but not impossible, and he was glad to look for cracks in its functionality.

Something felt similar to Reneden, and it wasn’t just the initial system they had stumbled into. Now that he saw they controlled multiple systems, Anton felt certain there was some connection between this place and Reneden just a few systems away- he was just unsure what sort of connection there was. Or had been, since Reneden was certainly not connected to them in the modern day.

“Reneden says these guys are meanies,” Bear Hug commented.

Anton replied, still in the energy language. “It would be best not to reference our new friend right now. Even if we don’t think they can understand us.”

“Okay.” A pause. “Why are we just standing around? Did they say something? I wasn’t listening.”

It wasn’t that Bear Hug wasn’t paying attention. They just had to be actively working to sense sound, so it was easy to miss.

“They want us to wait for 'processing'," Anton said. “They’ll probably restrain us. I have some concerns about that?”

“Why?”

“If my energy is suppressed, I won’t be able to free us.” Anton might be able to call upon the power of a star to explode everything around them, but that would unfortunately also include his own body. Not terribly useful. It depended on how good their energy suppression was. “As for you… it might be problematic for you.”

“Because…?”

“You might not live without energy.”

“Oh yeah! That would be bad.”

Unlike Anton, Bear Hug didn’t have a brain. That wasn’t an insult, but ultimately Bear Hug was only a person because of natural energy- and upper energy, depending on which location they were talking about. They had to be careful about such things.

So they considered. And waited. And waited. Ultimately it did not take that long, but in that hour Anton could have crossed the entire system and back a dozen times. In fact, when something finally approached- not from one of the border defenses but from further in the system- Anton thought it was moving fast enough that they should have been able to arrive in ten or fifteen minutes.

That meant they were unprepared, despite clearly expecting Anton and Bear Hug. Otherwise they wouldn’t have been instantly restrained. Unprepared in what way, though? Anton wondered how they could take advantage of that. And if overwhelming force was the answer… he could honestly just relax.

Anton watched as out of the approaching ship came a robot. It looked entirely impractical for operation within atmosphere, as it was basically a jumble of non-humanoid limbs. It did have various clamps and carrying bits, plus other parts to propel it through space. It came to the outside of the cage. First the spatial cage extended around it, then opened up.

“You are to allow yourselves to be restrained,” a voice came through the robot. Was it more of a drone? Anton was certain the voice belonged to a woman on the ship, as he was snooping around there. On the other hand, even if the robot had some sort of autonomous system it would be convenient to carry speakers others could access. Relatedly, rather than extending natural energy it seemed to have carried an air bubble with it. Quite polite, if they were to be restricting their energy.

Much nicer than suffocating in space.

Two pairs of shackles were held forward. Anton was carefully inspecting them, taking his time moving closer. It took Bear Hug a single second to make some wrists and put the shackles on said wrists without first performing a proper inspection. At that point Bear Hug… slumped a little. “Oh wow, these make me feel so weak,” Bear Hug ‘whispered’ to Anton.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“I’m pretty sure you aren’t supposed to be able to use any energy,” Anton also replied subtly. “So maybe try to minimize that to listening unless you really need to.”

Since they didn’t fully disable Bear Hug, and both sets appeared to be the same, Anton let his own wrists be shackled. His inspection had revealed some thoughts on how they were enhanced, but once they were upon his wrists Anton was more certain. His energy was certainly suppressed. The shackles were high level, and could have probably bound Integration cultivators and even Augmentation cultivators. And Anton chose those specific things on purpose, because they seemed tailor made for Ascension cultivators.

They weren’t nearly as effective on a post-Life Transformation non Ascension cultivator, though. At the very least, Anton had some access to his energy. He’d anticipated that, or he would have risked provoking retaliation rather than leave himself helpless in the hands of unknown people he didn’t trust in the slightest.

“This isn’t a great way to treat visitors, you know,” Anton commented.

The same woman’s voice replied once more. “You’re not visitors. You’re intruders.”

“Only because you forced us to be.” Anton let himself be pulled gently along by the robot. “I’m quite certain you have received word from your other system, and we told them we didn’t intend to enter their territory. But you happen to have more and to be along our path, and you make it quite difficult to not step into your borders with the way you hide them.”

The woman had nothing to say. Anton hoped it was because she was taking him seriously. Soon enough they were on the ship, and Bear Hug nearly collapsed into a puddle. Anton noticed that they kept their ‘wrists’ intact for the shackles. Maybe the delay had been trying to find something that would restrain an amorphous individual. Or perhaps these Augmentation restraining shackles were rare. It would make sense, as they would be of some value even to the Alliance. They could do the same, but they didn’t have such powerful restraints casually laying around.

Anton wondered what would happen if he called upon ascension energy with the shackles on. He imagined that would be suppressed far more than his natural energy was. He might be able to break them with his natural energy, though. It was quite possible the people of Aretis hadn’t ever been exposed to people like them before. Even Bear Hug was a proper Assimilation/Integration cultivator, a good bit stronger than the expected limit of Life Transformation.

While they had powerful technology, Anton could tell that none of their cultivators were beyond Life Transformation. The woman in charge was at that stage, but if they had anyone stronger Anton would have expected them to be involved. Maybe if they only had a few in positions of high power they wouldn’t go to do menial work… but that would imply that they didn’t have a good measure of Anton’s power. He felt they should be more competent than that, especially from how they were quickly flanked by guards.

A young woman in a formal uniform stood proudly in front of them after they passed through the airlock. Anton would be willing to bet she was barely over a hundred, and she was in peak Life Transformation. Impressive. Obviously exact estimates were difficult, but Anton had some experience.

“I am Felicitas,” she stood stiffly. “Your names?”

“I am Anton, and this is Bear Hug.” Bear Hug would have had to expend entirely too much energy to speak. “Normally, they would be giving a rather friendly greeting as per their name, but we appear to be in shackles.” That wouldn’t stop Bear Hug. It was once again just another too-big display of energy.

Felicitas clearly couldn’t take her eyes off of Bear Hug. She didn’t seem to be willing to discuss the novelty of a plantlike cultivator. “Follow me, Anton and… Bear Hug.” She turned, and Anton felt no need to make things hard for anyone involved. He strode along comfortably, with Bear Hug slipping along the floor and clearly uncertain guards paying close attention to them. “What sect are you from, Anton?”

“I am the sect head of the Order of One Hundred Stars, from Ceretos,” Anton said. There was no reason to lie there. If they were enemies, he wanted to probe that out. If they were just cautious and unfriendly… that could be dealt with as well. “That’s back the way we came from,” Anton supplied helpfully.

Felicitas’ energy was locked on Anton. She was clearly suspicious of him. He kept his sensing as passive as possible, picking up information from his surroundings. At some point the ship had begun to move, though it hadn’t come with any particular feeling of acceleration. Then again, inertial dampening technology was far simpler than the ability to make spatial cages in arbitrary locations.

“... What is your phase of cultivation?” Felicitas asked.

Anton had no reason to lie there either, though he certainly wasn’t going to give a complete explanation. “We call it Unity,” Anton explained. In other circumstances, he would have explained it was three phases beyond Life Transformation. Here, they could guess. Unless they let them free and apologized to Bear Hug. Anton didn’t need a personal apology.

They ended up being brought to cells that clearly weren’t made for people like Bear Hug. Bear Hug was placed in the same cell as Anton, with bars of energy blocking their exit. Anton wondered if it would be easier to carve his way through the hull of the ship. Probably not. Besides, if the ship’s power flow was disrupted in a moment wouldn’t they just be free?

Anton didn’t bother asking to have their restraints removed. The cell didn’t have any sort of suppression systems as far as he could tell. Felicitas stayed to watch them, at least. “Not much for conversation, are you?”

“That’s not my job.”

“Sure it is. You’re supposed to pick up details from your prisoners. That means engaging in conversation. If we don’t talk, you’ll never find out why we ended up here.”

“... Why are you here?”

“Because your system was between us and our destination.” Anton said that as clearly as possible. He had no doubt she was inspecting him with all of her insight. Well… at least as much of her as was focused on him. Her eyes kept darting to Bear Hug. Anton had caught some whispers that people didn’t think he could hear, and people were very confused about Bear Hug. “This is the part where you’re supposed to ask what our destination was.”

“What are you trying to get out of me?” Felicitas asked.

“Humanity,” Anton replied. “And an understanding of who your enemies are. Because it’s certainly not us. It’s a black hole, by the way.”

“There aren’t any black holes around here.”

“I did say it was on the other side. If you look it up, I’m certain your charts will show one about a thousand lightyears off… that way,” Anton gestured. “Vaguely galactic east.”

“Indeed. What an interesting excuse.”

“Bear Hug would say I was remiss if I didn’t invite you to come see the black hole with us,” Anton smiled lightly. “They love to make new friends but can’t really speak right now. No vocal chords, you know.”

Felicitas’ face was stoic. Her heart was not. She didn’t seem to be able to make any sense of the situation. But they were already arriving at a planet, so they didn’t have to wait much longer. Anton wondered if they couldn’t have simply been waiting near the exit instead of walking all the way to the ship’s cells.