Cataclysm Rising | Chapter 52: Crash Course (Second Draft)

This is a brand new chapter inserted into Book 1, released here exclusively for Patreon ahead of Book 1 being published. Enjoy.

-----

Friday, June 15, 4 S.E.

“{Now, before we do anything,}” Ceruviel said as Leonidas settled into the chair opposite her after his shower, glancing around the spacious office she occupied and admiring the rows of bookshelves within it. “{We have several things to cover. First and foremost, I have dispatched the messages you wrote with trustworthy messengers to the Alliance, Coalition, and Nomads, as you requested.”

Leonidas raised his eyebrows at her words and nodded his thanks, inclining his head as he did.

“{Thank you, Mentor,}” he said sincerely, to which the imperious woman waved her fingers dismissively and drew a faint smile from him in the act.

“{I keep my promises, Achilles,}” Ceruviel said determinedly. “{You may hate my methods before all is said and done, but I intend to ensure your mental stability and disciplined capability. To that end, the next order of business is to better enlighten you about what I promised: my Quest.}”

Leonidas raised his eyebrows and opened his mouth to speak, only to be cut off by the apparition of a System screen.

SYSTEM MESSAGE

Ceruviel Latherian wishes to share a [Quest] with you!

Do you wish to review the [Quest] details now?

[Y] | [N]

Leonidas blinked at the screen, glanced at his Mentor—who raised a silver eyebrow imperiously—and then tapped the [Y] button a second later, eyeing the air as the screen vanished and was replaced by another.

SYSTEM MESSAGE

Congratulations, Leonidas! You have been offered participation in a [Class Quest]!

ARCHONS OR ASHES

[Quality]: Legendary

[Description]: The Archon Order was once the premier symbol of Justice and Valor across the breadth of [Altera], utilizing the unique [Class] of its so-named Archons to bring peace and harmony to the war-riven nations of their Homeworld. These efforts carried with them a reputation for unyielding commitment and a tacit denial of authority from any who would see the Archons submit to any one Crown.

The result of this independence was a steady decline in the Archons, catalyzed by growing antipathy and a disinclination toward their growing hegemony as a neutral power unto themselves. In the millennia following the unification of [Altera], fewer eligible Squires of worthy temperament were discovered, until finally the Archons dwindled to less than a dozen.

Now, with a single Archon remaining in all the System Nexus following the death of Grandmaster Alurien Starsword, and the subsequent culling of every Archon save one, the Order stands on the brink of total extinction—with none remaining to inherit its legacy. The future of the Order rests in the balance, and whether it fades into legend or its flame of Justice reignites depends on the efforts of the Last Archon.

[Quest Objective 1]: Rebuild the Archon Order on [Unclaimed Planet 42]

[Quest Objective 2]: Recruit an Archon Squire (COMPLETE)

[Quest Objective 3]: Mentor an Archon Squire to attain the Archon [Class]

[Quest Objective 4]: Mentor a new Archon to [Tier Five] Ascendant

[Quest Objective 5]: Mentor a second Archon to [Tier Three] Contender

[Optional Objective 1]: Rediscover the [Starmetal Psiblade] of Alurien Starsword

[Optional Objective 2]: Rediscover the [Starmetal Warplate] of Alurien Starsword

[Reward 1]: [Title: Archon Grandmaster]

[Reward 2]: 30,000 [Aetherium]

[Reward 3]:  [Crafting Blueprint: Archon’s Psiblade]

[Reward 4]:  [Crafting Blueprint: Archon’s Warplate]

[Reward 5]: [Aetherium Store Requisition: Archon Order Citadel]

Do you wish to accept this [Class Quest] and aid Ceruviel Latherian?

Warning: Rewards will be solely attributed to Ceruviel Latherian!

[Y] | [N]

Leonidas stared at the System screen in silence as he read over it and then looked at Ceruviel, who was watching him with unblinking lavender eyes. His brows furrowed in contemplation, and he reached up to idly rub his forehead in consideration while he looked back at the screen in silent contemplation.

The rewards were… considerable, to put it very mildly. The [Aetherium] alone was world-altering, but that was almost irrelevant before the ability to craft both the weapon and armor that made the Archon Order so legendary, not to mention the ability—based on his assumption—to custom-order an entire Citadel from the [Aetherium Store].

His eyes drifted back to Ceruviel, and Leonidas pursed his lips before, after a moment, jabbing his finger at the [Y] button without allowing himself to hesitate further. A System chime echoed around them, and his Mentor’s eyes brightened when it did, followed by what he might have actually called a relieved, genuinely warm smile.

“{Thank you, Achilles,}” Ceruviel said sincerely, to which Leonidas found himself smiling wryly.

“{Well, with the rewards alone, this is world-altering,}” he stated while borrowing his own thoughts. “{But even with that aside, I do not see a downside to aiding you in this. If anything, it directly aids me. Even if the ‘King’ thing does not work out, it permits us both a goal to aim for, and if it does eventuate, I cannot say it would be a disadvantage to have a hand in reforming the Archon Order.}”

“{How pragmatic,}” his Mentor said with a tone of approval. “{Well-reasoned. Yes, the rewards are considerable, but the primary point of interest for me is the optional objectives. Alurien Starsword was like a father to me. If his unique weapon and armor can be reclaimed, it would be of great personal value to me.}”

Leonidas nodded in understanding, thinking of Miranda and how much it meant to him to have successfully recovered and enshrined her own blade and armor. He could easily empathize with his new Mentor’s desire to honor her teacher.

“{I am glad you understand,}” Ceruviel said shrewdly, and then leaned back in her chair. “{Now, with that finished, there is one more matter to address: your pointed lack of knowledge about Cultivation and all that it entails. This is a hole in your understanding that will cripple you without proper correction, and candidly, I should have addressed it much earlier.}”

Leonidas perked up at her words and leaned forward despite himself, a mix of interest and eagerness overriding his latent thoughts about Miranda, Elatra, and all the darkness those memories portended.

“{I am ready and willing to learn,}” he assured her, to which Ceruviel smirked.

“Excellent, because we only have ten minutes,” the Duchess said as she switched to English and bridged her fingers before her thoughtfully. “How much do you know about Cultivation within the System?”

Leonidas blinked at the question and promptly racked his brain, recalling all he’d learned in his first two days in Dawnhaven.

“I need ten times my current level for experience to reach the next one, my Core has stages, and there are different ranks for each Tier, which I understand to change every ten levels.”

Ceruviel’s features flickered with approval at his answer and she inclined her head slightly.

“Good enough,” his Mentor began patiently. “What I am going to explain to you will give greater insight, and if you are wise enough, it will serve to enhance your ability to maximize your own talents moving forward.”

Leonidas nodded and focused on Ceruviel, settling his mind in such a way as to absorb what she was saying. His [Codex] might contain the knowledge already, or store it after it was said, but the System probably lacked the nuance that a veteran Cultivator could offer in their explanation—so he had no intention of failing to absorb her words.

“The essence of what we call Cultivation is overcoming adversity, and being rewarded for the effort therein,” Ceruviel began intently, her melodious voice filling the office. “Experience is a manifestation of this adversity, curated in a tangible way so as to inform our growth. The more powerful a creature is, the more reward we are given—usually equating to their level turning into one hundred. In essence, a level 10 creature will give you 100 Experience. Extra modifiers are added for things like difficulty, relative power, and more, but this is the usual rule of the System.”

Leonidas nodded as he processed what she said.

“So the more you level, the harder it becomes to gain more levels,” he inferred.

“In simple terms, yes,” Ceruviel concurred as she continued. “100 Experience seems a hefty chunk until you suddenly require 18,000, for example, to reach Level 19, and suddenly you are having to slay endless hordes of creatures for inches of progress. This is exacerbated by maluses affecting weaker foes. Any creature two levels or more below you will give less experience due to the System’s balances.”

Leonidas pondered her words and let out a low whistle after he did.

“So then the only real way to advance reliably is to challenge enemies above your own level continuously,” he said, remembering his Arena matches and the battles at the Elite Slayer Trial. It recontextualized Ceruviel’s efforts. She’d been trying to give him the chance for extensive growth from the outset, apparently, even while considering the Trial of Worth. The cantankerous woman had afforded him greater opportunities than he’d realized.

The thought was both humbling and recontextualized her at the same time.

Harsh, definitely, but also well-intentioned—even if she came across as cruel.

“Correct,” Ceruviel said with a glimmer of approval, and a slight smirk that told him she could hear his thoughts. “Any enemy you defeat more than two levels above you will incur a bonus, any enemy you defeat a tier above you will incur more bonuses, so on and so forth. It is the easiest manner to gain experience and rapid growth, but it comes with caveats; first, aid from a more powerful Cultivator will greatly impede your experience gain, and secondly, you cannot advance beyond your Core’s capability to manage the energy.”

Leonidas nodded in understanding and leaned back in his chair, folding his arms in thought as he pondered the enemies and opponents he’d already faced.

“So with my Core at Formation…”

“You cannot advance beyond Initiate,” Ceruviel supplied simply.

“What happens if you do?” Leonidas asked curiously.

The Duchess smiled mirthlessly at his words and shrugged a little.

“Your Core will destabilize, your internal organs will rupture, and you will die from the calamitous feedback of your Core and dantian exploding inside your body.”

Leonidas went still at her words and took a moment to grimace at what she said. “Okay, so, definitely not ideal,” he murmured, drawing a chuckle from the implacable Haelfar. “So why not just advance your Core as much as possible before leveling?”

Ceruviel’s eyes glimmered with amused approval at his words, and she shook her head, with an expression that spoke of personal understanding of the desire.

“Ambitious, but impossible. You need a set amount of Tempering to maintain the energy flow needed to reach each new Core stage, combined with the benefits of each specific Temper,” his Mentor explained. “Each Tier, from one to nine, grants a specific benefit through Tempering,” she explained, and idly gestured with her right hand, creating nine glowing silver icons in a line in the air between them, above her massive desk.

Leonidas looked over them all and noted that they seemed to be stylized calligraphic numbers, ranging from 1 to 9.

“The tiers are also called ranks, as you know,” the Duchess continued. “They are named as thus: Initiate, Adept, Contender, Elite, Ascendant, Venerate, Paragon, Transcendant, and finally, Saint.”

As she spoke, each of the symbols gained an English subtitle, naming them in order while she explained, and Leonidas listened in attentive silence. There was a time for interruption, and there was a time to just listen. Being educated by the most powerful woman in Dawnhaven, if not the Continent? Definitely a time to listen.

“Each of these ranks confers different bonuses after Tempering,” Ceruviel said after eyeing him, and smirking slightly at what he assumed was her reading of his thoughts. “Your Attributes will gain a passive 25% efficacy boost per Temper, though this is not reflected on your [Profile]. Think of it as a metaphysical improvement, one tied less to raw Attributes and more to how potent their effect becomes. With each new Temper, this bonus increases by a further 25%.”

Leonidas’ eyes widened at her words, and he looked across the row of projected images as the numbers burned into existence beneath the names. His gaze fell upon the ‘Venerate’ symbol, Ceruviel’s own rank, and saw the ‘125%’ emblazoned beneath the title—at which point he reflexively swallowed upon realization.

“So as a Venerate, you’re at a 125% passive Attribute boost?”

“And then some, after taking my Titles and Traits into consideration,” the Duchess said mildly, nodding as she affirmed his words. “Tempering factors in after other bonuses like Titles, Traits, and Skills, however. If you ever gained a Skill that enhanced an Attribute by 50%, for example, your total enhancement would be 75% actively and passively in unison if you reached Initiate and then activated the Skill.”

Leonidas nodded again and then frowned.

“Sure, that makes sense, but how does that affect resources? Theoretically, if my Vitality, Endurance, Intelligence, and Willpower are boosted by Tempering—”

“It doesn’t,” Ceruviel cut in with clear approval of his postulation. “The enhancement will make you more durable, more energetic, and more keen-minded and able to assert your will more potently, but they do not translate to actual resource amplification. The Tempering boost only affects the impact of those Attributes. You will strike harder, move faster, and be immune to damage that may have harmed you pre-Tempering, but it will not reflect in your actual numbers.”

Leonidas opened his mouth to ask why, and Ceruviel lifted her hand.

“Before you ask, I cannot answer why, Achilles—it is simply an immutable fact of the System, one we do not entirely understand, despite efforts to discern its reasons.”

Leonidas closed his mouth with a nod and frowned to himself.

What a stupid outlier. Why give a boost but no material benefit?

“A question many have asked,” Ceruviel said with a flash of her lavender eyes. “You are not the first nor will you be the last to wonder at the System’s inconsistencies, but such is the nature of the System. We simply accept it as it is.”

Leonidas grimaced at the implication of ‘System does what System does’ and folded his arms with instinctive, stubborn antipathy toward the idea of letting it lie—but he knew enough, by that point, to realize that arguing the consistent inconsistencies, so to speak, inherent to the System was probably a losing proposition without more understanding.

“Very good,” she murmured, and then looked back to the hovering symbols. “The second-to-last element of Tempering,” she continued with tacit approval of his thought process, “are the changes it affects upon the Cultivator’s body. Each Tier presents a different impact. In order from First to Ninth, they are: Body Strengthening, Mind Strengthening, Spirit Strengthening, Holistic Reinforcement, Body Reforging, Mind Reforging, Spirit Reforging, Entropic Immutability, and Core Immortality.”

Leonidas watched as the words flashed into existence below the passive Tempering boosts and blinked as he read over them. The first three were relatively straightforward, as was the fourth, but the latter three seemed a little redundant. The last two he had vague notions of, but he wasn’t about to pass uncertain guesses with something so important to understand.

“Yeah…” he said with a faint squint. “Could you explain those?”

Ceruviel chuckled at him and shook her head.

“Of course,” she said with a wry smirk. “In essence, the first three strengthen specific elements of your existence and grant you active benefits to your Attributes or Resources based upon the Tempering type. The fourth reinforces these benefits holistically, amplifying them; afterward, reforging occurs. Each tier of Reforging completely remakes a part of your existence, and solidifies your final sense of self.”

Her right hand rose, and she touched her breastplate.

“I am Body and Mind Reforged,” she elaborated steadily. “My appearance is that which I selected for myself through subconscious self-projection during my Ascendant Tempering, and my mind—wicked and brilliant as it is—came about from the force of my Intelligence and Willpower. Reforging is not strictly breaking something down, inasmuch as it is sloughing away the old foundation to replace it with the cumulative superiority of what you have developed up until that point. It operates on a principle not unlike removing impurities from metal.”

Leonidas nodded in understanding at her explanation, tried to envision the process, and then asked the question on his mind as he resolved the information she had given him, working to comprehend it instead of just understanding it.

“Does it have any lasting impacts on you?”

Ceruviel inclined her head at his question.

“It does,” she confirmed. “Body Reforging will solidify your physical self and identity, erasing any imperfections you deem as such, and restoring you to full and complete physical wellness. Scars, markings, and even amputations—anything you do not intrinsically consider part of your physical identity is removed or replaced. Your body is curated around the potency of your Attributes as the baseline, and recrafted to enable maximum physical performance. In rare cases, it has even been known to completely change someone’s physical sex to align with their deepest desires.”

Leonidas glanced down at himself, imagining what he might consider an imperfection, and then raised his attention back to Ceruviel. Of all the things she’d said, Body Reforging sounded like a damn-near miracle. He’d known more than one person who felt ‘trapped’ in their body, and while he wasn’t among them, he could see how desperately someone would look forward to such an opportunity.

“And Mind Reforging?” he asked after a moment.

Ceruviel seemed to pause to consider how to answer him before she spoke.

“It erases mental irregularities, clears away trauma by reframing the otherwise-overwhelming memories into a manageable state, and corrects unstable deviations like paranoia, phobias, chronic depression, and other mental impediments that might restrict your ability to function,” she explained carefully. “It removes your mind’s weaknesses and makes you more robust—harder to mentally dominate, more resilient to becoming emotionally overwrought, more focused, and more capable of processing and understanding concepts, information, and Skills.”

Leonidas nodded at the explanation and, for a second, imagined a world without depression, with a moment of wonder. Sadness was one thing, but actual chronic depression was a crippling and destructive ailment, and he’d lost a friend to those demons already in his youth. If Cultivation could have saved James…

Leonidas grimaced and dispelled the thought. Down that path lay madness.

“What about the last three?” he asked, determined to move on, and aware that he was treading dangerously close to melancholy thoughts again.

“Simply put, I only have theoretical understandings of these,” Ceruviel said with firm emphasis, ensuring he understood they were entering the realm of educated supposition instead of factual experience, which he clocked quickly.

“Spirit Reforging, purportedly, enhances the fundamental existence of a person. Their charm, their charisma, their metaphysical appeal to others, their force of presence, their ability to affect others with their feelings and emotions—it also amplifies empathic connection to a supernatural level, as odd as it is to say that in association with magical Cultivation. Spirit Reforging also greatly enhances the understanding and mastery of your Skills to an unparalleled degree.”

Her eyes remained unblinking after she spoke, and when Leonidas only offered a nod of comprehension, she smiled at him when he gave her silent attentiveness and spoke again.

“Entropic Immutability immunizes you from the ravages of time, making your Body, Mind, and Spirit effectively ageless. You will always appear in your desired form, with no degradation of any of your three elements of existence.”

Her eyes shifted away from him toward the Saint rank number 9, and she pursed her lips.

“As for Core Immortality, it is much simpler: as long as your Core is neither sundered nor catastrophically destabilized, you can regenerate from even complete destruction of your body. You are, essentially, immortal. Raw damage alone is not enough to kill you—you will invariably regenerate around your Core, in which the essence of you will forever reside.”

“That sounds…”

“Amazing, yes,” Ceruviel concurred with a wry smile, “though having known several Saints, the burdens and effects that come with such a state are not always as beneficial as it might otherwise portend. Nevertheless, it remains a precipice of immutable power, one few, if any, ever attain across the System Nexus. In over ten thousand years since Altera’s Integration, less than a hundred souls reached the rank of Saint, out of countless billions.”

Leonidas nodded as Ceruviel looked back at the projections, and a final line of subtitles appeared beneath them, spelling out a different term at the bottom of each of the nine Tiers.

“Finally,” she continued informatively, “each Temper stage has a requirement for your Core prior to the next, as I stated. You begin at Formation. From there, each Tempering level unlocks a new Core stage, which you may acquire and which must be achieved in turn before Tempering further. In order, starting from Initiate, these are: Compression, Reinforcement, Acceleration, Expansion, Dispersion, Reformation, Ignition, and Completion.”

Leonidas mouthed the words to himself as Ceruviel allowed him to process the new information. It was immensely helpful to finally fully understand the pathway to achieving new power, though he couldn’t deny that the entire path was endlessly complex. Ceruviel also hadn’t mentioned anything about Chakras, which told him that perhaps the System didn’t put any care or emphasis on their existence, unlike what had happened on Elatra with his Hero Cultivation. A small difference between his time as the Hero and his new reality, but not world-shattering.

“So after I reach Initiate,” Leonidas said after he internalized the information, “I need to advance my Core to Compression before leveling to Adept, and then I need Reinforcement before going for Contender, so on from there?”

“Correct,” Ceruviel said with a nod. “The purpose of your training in the next month will be to aid you in understanding the concepts and methods behind Cultivating your Core, as well as preparing you for your inevitable Tempering in the Arena. You are afforded a full day and night cycle, twenty-four hours here on Terra, to complete your Tempering once it is available—though you cannot gain Experience until you do, after unlocking your next Tier.”

Leonidas nodded in final understanding and took a breath.

“Right then,” he said and smiled wryly. “I’m guessing that’s a natural lead-in to what comes next?”

Ceruviel’s lavender eyes flashed with approval, and she smiled in turn.

“Oh yes, Achilles,” his Mentor stated intently. “Now, we start your training in earnest.”