183. Praetei Dai Kezlan

Alistair’s two weeks of grinding placed him near level 74 before leaving. That was how he knew that his time on Earth was at its rightful end.

There just wasn’t anything challenging enough for him. His path was not that of a cloistered monk. He needed to save lives, to trade fists.

The ambient Mana of Earth, while having massively increased, was also too low. He wouldn’t get to Adept in time for the yearly admissions testing.

There were a few goodbyes—Oliver, John, William, the Maine Brothers, Robert Oakland and Fasha. Many others had already left with their sponsors.

“Do you think you’ll remember me when I come back?”

Alistair said these words to little Tamia, who had just turned six. He tossed her up in the air, where she giggled uncontrollably.

“Of course I will! I’m not a baby!” the girl said defiantly. “I might even be stronger than you.”

“I’d love to see that,” Alistair said.

Donna snatched her daughter out of the air. “Stop stalling, Alistair. We’ll be fine.” As if to demonstrate that, she showed off a spell that shot lightning out of her fingertips.

“You’re right.” Alistair sighed and waved goodbye to the Leading Domes. It was unfortunate that his timing had been leaked to the public. Thousands of people lined the streets of the capital, cheering for their planetary lord as he walked to where the Grand Imperator had made camp on Earth.

Hearing the screams and applause of the crowd felt strange. It didn’t feel right. He had never wanted to be a celebrity.

Oh well, Alistair thought. My fame isn’t going to change. May as well give them something to cheer for.

If Alistair had done crowd work for viewers of Felons vs. Fellows and the blobs from Cosmic Blood, he could show off for some of his fellow Earthlings. He gave them a show to remember, demonstrating some of his public abilities. That got some “oos” and “ahs” from them.

It didn’t take long to get to the field where the Grand Imperator had landed. The field was empty—the mighty Final Frontier Empire cultivators didn’t want to spend any more time on a backwater planet than necessary.

That was, except for Praetei herself. She was the sole individual left, standing in the middle of an open field of grass. With his [Reality Sense], she stuck out like a sore thumb.

Alistair was sure that she could sense him for miles, but she waited until they could see each other to act.

A golden light filled with the whispers of Empire surrounded him, and he ascended. It was like last time, with them flying through the clouds at a rapidly accelerating pace. Physics dictated that Alistair should have been spaghettified with how fast he was accelerating, but the Dao said otherwise.

He traveled thousands of miles in the span of ten seconds, flying out of Earth’s atmosphere. The ravages of space were meaningless with the golden light protecting him, and they approached the ship together.

Up close, Alistair realized just how enormous the Grand Imperator’s ship was, pegging it as over a hundred miles long. The ship was golden like Praetei’s aura, shaped like a saucer with one end sharpened to a triangle shape. That end had a gap in between two pincer-like protrusions. On the belly side of the ship that faced Earth, there were two hollow cylinders.

They slowed down as they got closer to the ship. A human-sized hole appeared for the two of them, and they passed through without a hitch. Somehow, they didn’t disrupt the pressurized inside of the spaceship.

Alistair took a second to marvel at the room that she had brought them to. It was like a miniature version of her Domain, with a throne fit for a giant in the back, along with statues of the Emperor’s soldiers and a floating light he assumed represented the heavenly archon.

Other than that, he saw a formation with hundreds of runes beneath the throne, and an abundance of plants that gave a distinct aura of life. The formation gathered Mana from the plants, and he assumed it was some kind of Mana-gathering device that allowed her to cultivate.

The concentration of Mana was hundreds of times greater than that on Earth, and without Praetei’s protection, it would have killed him by his meridians erupting.

“Welcome to my personal chambers,” Praetei said with a smile warmer than Alistair would have thought her capable of. “Please, take a seat.”

It wasn’t optional—he found his butt dragged down, where an impossibly comfy golden block warped around him to form a perfect chair. Praetei sat as well. Her control over her room was effortless.

“I know this must be a lot for you,” Praetei said. “My reports say that you have left this planet before, but this will be your first time truly stepping forward into the wider multiverse. It is a step that I remember fondly.”

“I am honored by your sympathy, my lady.” Alistair dipped his head respectfully. “This one is thankful for the transportation.”

Praetei waved her hand. “Enough of that formality. Call me Praetei, as I asked before.”

Alistair felt a bead of sweat on his forehead. If it was a trap, he couldn’t do anything about it, anyway. “I will, Praetei.”

“Good, good. Firstly, I apologize for my lateness and the disturbing nature of your initiation. 95.05% mortality rate is highly abnormal. Not to mention the… unfortunate circumstances.”

Hearing those words made his head spin. The rage at the Final Frontier Empire and the Pathfinder AI at the circumstances that led to the initiation had never fully left him. For a Grand Imperator who stood only below the Emperor to express sorrow, even if it was tempered, felt very strange.

She was the woman that was going to allow Yarik Portolon to destroy his capital city if Alistair lost the fight!

No, Alistair supposed it was possible for her to be sympathetic and callous at the same time. These people were born into a different world than him. A world synonymous with violence. Being a participant in that bloody world of cultivation was not a guarantee of being evil.

“It… it is difficult to say how much I appreciate that. No one from the Final Frontier Empire has ever expressed sadness over what happened to my homeworld.”

Alistair’s statement verged on the impertinent, but he laid it out to bare nonetheless.

“Hmph,” Praetei grunted. “I can see that. A true cultivator does not exploit those that are beneath them. There is no merit to be gained in terrorizing Mana-less Foundations.”

“Do you know anything about the Man in Shadows?”

“That’s what the Pathfinder AI called Choran, right?” A dark look came over Praetei’s face. “Choran of the Crimson Eye is, or was, a Grand Imperator. He’s from the generation before me, and studied under my lord father. He was supposed to be on an extended vacation. I never would have imagined that he was working for demonic forces.”

“Demonic forces? Do you know more about the organization that he’s from? One of my best friends was kidnapped by them.”

Praetei gave him a sympathetic look and shook her head. “There are many demonic and unorthodox factions throughout the frontier. Though, it seems unlikely that a frontier polity could arrange for its agents to escape from one of the Pathfinder AI actual avatars. That being you saw there was a portion of a true Exalted realm. Most likely, they come from the involved. In that case, our hands really are tied.”

Alistair, hearing the words “the involved,” tried to extract as much information as he was allowed. “I’ve heard some stuff about the involved before. They’re in between the core and the frontier, right?”

For a second, he thought he saw a knowing smile, but it was a mere flicker on her face. “This universe along with around 10,000 nearby universes are part of the Rainmorrow Cluster. The Rainmorrow Cluster is a vassal of Technomagica, where each universe has been loaned a Pathfinder AI copy. Technomagica is an involved polity, an offshoot of the Sublimed Machine Faction. Even I don’t know that much about the Sublimed Machine, however. All we know is that they are extremely, extremely powerful—as in having multiple Truthseekers. They’re probably not as strong as the Five Great Pillars, but that’s not really saying much.”

Seeing as Alistair was already opening his mouth to ask, the Grand Imperator cut him off and answered the question forming on his tongue. “The Five Great Pillars simply refer to five factions of the multiversal core that publicly spread their name and have physical stations in every region of the multiverse. That doesn’t mean they’re the true top five strongest groups in the multiverse, but they’re the most known. ”

Alistair considered what he already knew. “The Hall of Mathematics has to be one. One of their flying monkeys mentioned the Multiversal Church, so I’d assume that’s one too. Dev—someone else mentioned the Order of Blood, and the Pathfinder AI brought up the Emperor fearing the Earthly Parisā. That’s only four, though.”

“Impressive,” Praetei said. “You have a good memory. The fifth is the Topographical Society, who produce the best maps in the multiverse and explore uncharted space.”

“Five Great Pillars, huh. Is it common for people in the Final Frontier Empire to join them?”

“In their frontier stations, most definitely. The Multiversal Church has the most sway in this region, and they require the most supplicants. Breaking the Dao firmament between universes is expensive, and becoming a deacon of the church is one of the only ways your average cultivator might have at seeing the great expanse. You’d have to be a talent blessed by the Heavens to be recruited to their core territories, however.”

Her words made Alistair realize further how important the Pathfinder AI’s shielding of Selephita was. A purebred firebird wasn’t something that appeared in the frontier all that often. He imagined that a group like the Multiversal Church would be interested in recruiting such a talent, forcibly if required.

Alistair moved to ask her something more, but then he tilted his head. “We’ve been talking for some time, but the ship hasn’t moved?”

“Ah, to be young,” Praetei sighed. “You’ve never been on a spaceship that is fueled by the Dao, have you? Most spaceships utilize the Dao of Space to go at superluminal speeds. A nice side effect is that it almost feels like nothing has happened.”

“And where are we going?”

“I’ll be returning to Imperial Consecration. We’re around three week’s journey to the capital of this system, after which it’ll take me a few more weeks to reach the nearest wormhole to the Heartlands.”

Alistair nodded. “Thank you for the transportation. In the meantime, may I explore the ship?”

“Of course,” Praetei said. “Once again, I apologize for the lateness. Those pirates were remarkably tough, led by an old Visionary. They tried to bog me down on an Exemplar quality planet and win through a terrain advantage. They relied on me being unwilling to just destroy the entire world. I think, if they had another go at it, they would have surrendered.”

Alistair shuddered at those words, reminding himself that in front of him was an old monster at the peak of Visionary, enhanced by a portion of the Emperor’s power. They could have a conversation, but there was a fundamental divide.

Praetei didn’t let him go just yet, though her next statement was more positive for him. “I almost forgot to mention. Farsa Strongbite accompanied me on the journey, though I’ve decided to commandeer his message. The Bank of Mai Atal has decided that you shall visit their central office and help catalog and clear out the collateral of those who have defaulted. Their physical vaults. It would be six months of labor, only to happen after you’ve been situated at the sect. They have some leeway with when exactly it’ll happen.”

A serious look came across her face, one that he had seen when she faced the Demonic Curse.

“I have given my solemn guarantee of your safety, ratified with the Emperor’s will. If they harm a hair on your head, they invite a wrath they know they cannot handle. Do not worry.”

Alistair gulped. “I would never doubt the Emperor’s protection.”

“Good. And I meant what I said about you being a good Grand Imperator. Always keep that in mind. Your sect is a good one. The Perfect is an old acquaintance of mine, and she keeps to the old ways. She is recruiting you with the hopes that you will one day become an elder, though she will not give you preferential treatment, I know that for a fact. You will have to struggle in the depths like everyone else. When the time comes for you to choose your destiny, I hope that I have made a good impression. I know you wish to see your sister now. I shall take my leave.”

With that, their meeting came to a close. Alistair blinked and in one moment he was in the Grand Imperator’s room, and in the next, in a great hall filled with the endless expanse of space.

[Reality Sense] worked even with his eyes closed, and for less than a millisecond, he had seen the void between worlds, the desolate emptiness that could be spotted when a Visionary broke open spacetime with their Dao.

That feeling of smallness compared to the infinite void affected him less, both because of exposure and the shorter distance. He popped out right next to a familiar face.

The woman greeted him with a bear hug, though their size difference made it comical. Alistair’s focus on the physical aspects of cultivation put him well above six feet tall, with muscles fit for a bodybuilder.

“Evangeline!” he exclaimed, putting his sister down. “How was your early arrival?”