Chapter 125: Ascendant Realm

There were more things that changed in the past six months.

The most notable was Encrid’s cultivation.

It happened on an ordinary night, when Encrid was about to decide that Cultivation wasn’t for him.

He had been practicing the star cultivation for nearly fourteen months by now.

He had not missed a single night.

It was something he was quietly proud of, although he had never told anyone about it.

Every night, he would sit on the frozen mounting block behind the granary. When the weather became too cold, he would sit in the corner of the Third Office instead.

For an hour, he would place his fingers against the cool coal at the hollow of his throat and try to move the current through his body.

For fourteen months, almost nothing had happened.

He had widened only three channels in his body.

The novel said that there were somewhere between forty and sixty channels in the human body. Encrid had just cleared three in fourteen months, and he had remained there ever since.

No matter what he did, he could not move any further.

The Azure Star was said to be the third hardest of the seven Stars to open and cultivate, but he didn’t expect the difficulty to be this much.

According to the cultivation book, the difficulty was explained as such.

The Azure Star was hard to cultivate because it required something most people did not have - a person had to stop insisting on themselves.

Encrid had read that sentence nearly hundreds of times.

And he still did not understand what it meant.

Until that night.

It had been a terrible day.

The eastern stores had been miscounted for the third time. The school had lost a student after he fell from the seventh stair. Then Encrid had spent four hours at the Council listening to two watch commanders argue about a rota that Corr had already proven was wrong.

By the time he finished, it was the second hour of the morning.

Encrid went to the mounting block behind the granary.

He was too tired to sleep.

He was also too tired to practice.

He sat down and placed his fingers against the coal at his throat.

For once, he did not try to move the current.

He simply sat there. The cool current remained at his throat.

Encrid closed his eyes.

He did not think about opening any channels. He did not think about the next realm. He did not think about what he was supposed to do.

He simply let the current remain where it was.

After some time, he noticed something strange.

The current was moving even when he didn’t do anything.

Encrid opened his eyes.

It was not moving in the direction he had been trying to force it for the past fourteen months.

It was moving in a direction that it preferred.

The current passed through his shoulder and travelled along the outside of his arm. Then it entered a channel he had never tried to open.

Encrid almost stopped it, since that was not where it was supposed to go.

He had spent fourteen months trying to force the current toward the Fourth channel because that was what the books of cultivation told him to do.

But the current did not seem interested in the Fourth Gate.

It had chosen its own path.

Encrid watched it for several seconds. Then he finally understood.

He remembered the sentence from the novel.

Stop insisting on yourself.

For fourteen months, he had been trying to control the current. He had been treating it like something that needed to obey him.

But the Azure Star was not meant to be forced.

It was meant to flow.

The realization came so suddenly that Encrid almost laughed. He had spent fourteen months fighting something that had never been fighting him.

So he stopped.

He let the current move wherever it wanted.

The current entered the new channel. The channel widened.

There was no pain or struggle.

The Fourth channel opened.

Then the Fifth.

Then the Sixth.

Encrid took a slow breath.

The Seventh opened.

Then the Eighth.

Then the Ninth.

The cold current travelled from his throat all the way to his feet.

For a moment, everything around him seemed sharper.

He could hear the wind more clearly. He could feel the stone beneath him. He could even sense the movement of the air against his skin.

Then the familiar words appeared before his eyes.

[ Your Azure star has broken through the initiate realm ]

[ Azure Star: Initiate → Ascendant ]

Encrid stared at the message.

Then he laughed.

He sat alone on a frozen mounting block behind the granary at the second hour of the morning and laughed until his ribs began to hurt.

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The new realm gave him more strength. That was what Encrid had expected.

It was also the part he cared about the least.

The Azure Star gave him something else.

Attunement.

The novel had mentioned it - the Azure Star’s greatest advantage was Attunement, but they had never explained it very well.

Encrid understood it only after he experienced it himself.

He could feel moving things. He could not see them through walls. He could not hear them. But he could simply feel their movement. He could sense their direction. He could sense their speed. He could even tell when something was about to stop. It worked on people from around forty paces away.

Water could be sensed from much farther.

On the second morning, Encrid stood on the Wall at the fifth mile.

He suddenly stopped walking.

Two bastions away, the watch was changing.

He could feel the movement of the soldiers along the parapet.

He could not see them.

But he did not need to. He could feel them moving.

Encrid smiled.

For most people, the Azure Star would have been useful. For him, it was something else entirely.

His job was to understand what was happening across a fortress that stretched for two hundred kilometres.

He did not need a stronger sword arm. He needed information.

The Azure Star had given him exactly that.

He told about his advancement to only two people.

The first was Gus.

Gus lived in the next room and would have figured it out within a day anyway.

As expected, Gus was extremely polite about it.

The second was Ysolde Marr.

That was another thing that had changed in the last six months. He had gotten a little closer to the second watch commander, and he would occasionally visit the training grounds to watch her train the men and learn something out of it.

Encrid told her four days later when he visited the seventh mile.

After hearing the news, Ysolde looked at him for several seconds.

Then she raised one hand.

She held it about six inches from his shoulder. Encrid felt the current inside his body bend toward her hand.

Ysolde lowered her hand.

She was checking his stars and realms herself - Encrid let her and stayed still.

When she was done, she looked at him.

"Azure star at the Ascendant realm- good, but your progress is very slow. And with your talent, you will probably never get a second star."

Encrid was aware of his talent, but it still hurt to hear it so obviously.

"I know."

"You are not upset about that?"

"No."

Ysolde looked at him.

"Most men your age would argue with me, saying they will prove me wrong."

"Well, I am not most men, I guess."

Ysolde smiled slightly. Encrid continued.

"I am not built for multiple Stars, or whatever allows a person to carry more than one, I do not have it."

He shrugged.

"I stopped being upset about it a long time ago."

Ysolde was quiet for a moment. Then she started walking.

Encrid followed her.

"There is something you should understand," she said.

"What?"

"Having one Star does not automatically make you weaker than someone with three."

Encrid listened.

"A person with one Star can become very strong if they understand what their Star is meant to do."

"Then what should they do?"

Ysolde looked ahead.

"They should find the one thing their Star does better than anything else."

She paused.

"Then they should build everything around it."

Encrid thought about that. Ysolde continued.

"Every man I have trained who had one Star eventually made the same mistake. They looked at people with three Stars and tried to fight like them."

"And what happened?"

"They died."

Encrid nodded slowly.

"So I should not try to become someone I am not."

"No." ℯℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

Ysolde looked at him.

"You should become very good at being yourself."

Encrid smiled.

"I think I can manage that."

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