Savage Awakening 552. Starfield (IV)

The next day, they both arrived around sunrise.

Kain gave him a look-over. “You're here again.”

“Yeah.”

“…Very well, then.”

That was that. At least this time, the guy didn’t try to scare him off. Without another word, they just got to work—Zane starting in from the left with great big arcs, Kain clearing from the right with more focused, high-powered shots.

After a few attempts, he'd gotten killing each Astrolith down to a science. He would clear them in groups of two or three, going back and forth between them as he chained. It was the most efficient use he’d worked out for his Slashes.

With this process he was clearing a good deal faster, and he wasn’t being clipped anymore, either. This time, he went through that whole field of lesser Astroliths while only taking one stray blow.

Kain didn’t challenge him when he cleared extra from Kain’s side either, just gave him a nod. Then they turned to the middle.

He assumed Kain wiped out the triple-cannon one, the one in the middle, because it was the most dangerous of the bunch. Then he focused on the machine-gun one. Zane instantly went for the big beam Astrolith since it had managed to pin him down briefly yesterday. It was the more troublesome of the two by far.

Today, with a combination of gravity cores shutting down its beam, and well-placed slashes, he ended it without too much trouble.

All in all, a pretty smooth effort.

Then the two of them went about minding their own businesses, as usual.

Today, Zane planned on knocking out his last few Starfire insights. He was almost done taking his survey of the element. Today, he was focused on how it moved—very linear. It took quite a lot of effort to bring it in a curve; it wouldn’t work as well with his Red Giant Storm for that reason.

In theory, learning this thing would speed up his shots nearly 3x. And boosting it through his body would let him move much faster in straight lines. He could see it applying very well to his Annihilation Charge. Even his punches would hit a lot faster.

His weaponry was a different matter.

Since they were chained, and therefore moved in arcs all the time, none of his weapons were ideally suited to make use of that straight-line boost. Maybe a spear-like weapon, if he had one?

He might get only 75% of the full Starfire attack-speed boost, but he still felt it was pretty substantial. Still well over a 2x speed boost.

…He wondered if he’d ever get another weapon, something that could really take advantage of this thing. It had been quite a while since his Axe.

The class evolutions had really slowed down after a certain point. He almost got the impression those early class evolutions acted more like ‘training wheels’ to get you into the System. But at higher and higher tiers, Laws and Paths defined you more.

Still. He thought wistfully that he’d like to have another Class upgrade. At some point, anyway.

He moved between a few crystals and found the frozen Starfire that best showed off the element’s linear burst speed. He found this fragment stretched out, frozen mid-motion, caught in a blur, blazing with star power. It was pretty remarkable to see up close. Just museum exhibits of mini-Law, one after another.

He did notice the best hours of Law were really those first 3 or 4, maybe. He would still be able to study the crystals after that, but their clarity and power peaked an hour or so before noon. They went downhill the rest of the day.

That day passed without incident. Kain left about an hour before he did.

That night, he did his usual—practicing chaining in his third Star-Crushing Slash, which would speed up the clearing a great deal. With how limited the best Law hours were, if he could shave off even just fifteen minutes a day, it would make a noticeable difference.

He got out his popcorn and settled in for his nightly battle viewing. He’d noticed his Stone Axes were down a man, and they were forced back a half-mile, to his dismay. But they were holding their ground. There seemed to be more unrest between the ragtag human-lesser-beast coalition and the coalition of the greater beasts. More dragons had flown in that night, arriving just at sunset, including some Young Master dragon, from what he could tell. It seemed to give their forces a shot of confidence… his Stone Axes were still situated right on a vulnerable part of the border. He was nervous.

Nothing too disastrous ended up happening, though.

On the third day, he showed up again and cleared the field with Kain, who said, “You really plan on coming every morning.”

And Zane said, “Yes.”

By the fifth day, he felt things had settled into a routine.

Today, he looked into the intensity of Starfire. He hadn’t really thought of it before, but this stuff wasn’t just the flame you saw when you stared directly at any sun. That was closer to Solar Flare fire. This stuff was the flame at the crucible of creation—not any surface-level flame. This was stuff you’d find at the heart of stars, stuff you’d never get to see usually, even if you got close. You’d have to break open the star itself.

He felt he understood more and more why this starfield was so valuable. At first, he’d wondered why he had to go back in time for this when you could find the fires of stars pretty much in any star… as a Law-teaching tool, it was simply unparalleled.

He wasn’t even sure how you’d go about learning Starfire without a tool like this. Maybe it did just end up being a big bottleneck for folks? It had to be a pretty rare Concept. He’d been a little desensitized since he’d seen tons of Monsters here wielding it as their one real power Concept. But it was true he’d rarely seen it in humans.

The more he studied this Starfire, the more he could feel the immense pressures and densities that surrounded it, that created its world-making intensity… it didn’t seem right to call it the same Law tier as Red Giant. If he could grasp this and run it with all his Destruction, he felt he’d be throwing shots that looked like Kain’s one-shot blast. Just without any cooldown.

All these things would take time to fully grasp, though. He’d need some experimenting, preferably in battle. Right now, he was still getting a feel for it; he'd need the full time to fully master it. But he felt up to it.

And when he felt ready to put it into practice, he’d have a mountain full of rock dummies to try it on. And a new field full every morning, too. The more he thought about this setup, the more pleased he was with it. Even Kain had stopped being a pain. He barely even saw the guy most of the day.

Toward the end of that day, he did see Kain testing out his own Concept. He seemed farther along in his own Law process than Zane was. He assumed the man had been here a good deal longer.

Kain slashed two fingers, and a pillar four times as big rained down, just blinding. It must’ve looked astonishing from a distance.

Kain didn’t seem like he had full control over it just yet—it flickered and winked out pretty quickly. But with that much damage and that scope, he might be able to take out three or four Astroliths at once.

“Hmph.” Kain just spun on his heels and left.

On the seventh day, Kain didn’t show up. Zane was quite pleased about this. He didn’t even mind going through the rest of the Astroliths all by himself. It did take a full hour and a half.

But just as he was finishing up, Kain crested the ridge.

Now, this ticked Zane off quite a bit. This guy was the one who’d gone on and on about working for their fair shares.

They locked eyes.

“You’re late,” Zane informed him.

“I am,” said Kain. He looked around at the fully cleared field of Astroliths. He seemed not quite sure what to say. “I… did not think you’d do all that.”

Zane shrugged and turned back to the Greater Greater Astroliths. He wouldn’t be too fussed about who did what, normally. He would’ve been happy to clear it all by himself, if need be. He just didn’t like this Kain at all—it was as simple as that.

“Thank you,” said Kain.

“No worries,” said Zane, mostly on reflex. It did take him a moment to clock that Kain had just thanked him.

“…You really are here simply to learn Starfire?”

“What else would I be here for?” Zane’s brow furrowed. This man had gotten off, and then swiftly back on, the wedgie fast track. “I thought you’d left, by the way.”

“Yes. I was trying to crystallize a Law insight… I failed.” Kain looked troubled. Then he gave Zane another frown. “How did you reach this place?”

“What do you mean?”

“The Pure Yang continent. You’re alone and claim not to be with any Sect. You seek Starfire specifically. You wear a disguise amulet.” 

“You do too,” Zane pointed out. It seemed rare but certainly not unheard of around these parts.

“Yours contain runes of a make I’ve never seen. That by itself is not impossible, just highly improbable. I pride myself on my knowledge of all cutting-edge runic languages. But the design language, the compactness of the strokes, make me believe it’s most likely etched with a fine-point tool which, to my knowledge, does not exist. It would not be impossible if it did not exist, either. Just highly improbable. Then there are the little things. The way you speak and act. The way you seem slightly confused at so much of this world.”

“That’s just how I am sometimes,” Zane assured him. It wasn’t any great discovery. The rest, though—he got the feeling this guy was heading somewhere, and he wasn’t sure he liked it.

Kain trailed off. “You’re a time traveler. You own a Galaxy Gear.”

Zane really wasn’t sure if he was supposed to have let that be discovered. 

But then he had another thought. He gave this Kain another inspection, including the man’s own disguise amulet. 

“You’re the other time traveler, aren’t you?”

“I am,” said Kain.

This was terrible news.

Would he actually have to interact with this guy?