Savage Awakening 548. Starfield (I)

The draw of the star-crushing slashes was how they were meant to stack.

It’d be like his Red Giant Storm in that way—just much faster and more versatile. That was the theory, anyway. The thing was, he found it pretty hard just getting off the ground with it.

The base Skill looked quite similar to his ‘Red Giant Slash’—just a little slower and maybe about 25% less strong. But he’d expected that. The first blow wasn’t as strong by design. It ramped up very quickly.

He reproduced the first slash of the nine without much issue. But the System wouldn’t recognize him as having learned the Skill for some reason. Maybe it was because he hadn’t chained it yet? It made sense. Chaining was the core of the Skill, after all.

The chaining turned out to be a bit of a conundrum.

He usually didn’t find it too difficult to progress in the early stages of a Skill. But even after walloping a few Astroliths with this thing, he was still quite stuck. He could still only make a single slash at a time.

He dodged a star beam, hacked the head off a Level 608 stardrake, and mulled just what to do.

It was quite easy and intuitive to chain his Red Giant Storm. That’d never been a problem. One revolution flowed into the next; with the Storm, the hard thing would’ve been to not carry the momentum through. But that wasn’t the case with this slash.

When one slash ended, all its firepower, essence, and Law just dispersed. He kept trying to seize onto it the way the scroll told him to. But when it was done, it was done.

He unfurled the scroll again, puzzled, and took another look at the diagrams.

Another thing he wasn’t so pleased about—for 50 Credits, he’d hoped to get a little more than a bunch of insight-infused diagrams. There were a few hints in the text as to what to do and a clear depiction of the progression of the slashes. But that was all. Maybe because it was an incomplete remnant of another Skill? There just wasn’t much to work off of.

Not the most helpful resource he’d ever read, he had to say.

He made a mental note to add another item to his list of System Store suggestions, alongside a ‘preview’ tool. He wanted a ‘review’ system where he could register his complaints, preferably with a star rating option. He’d tell Aiwe the next time he saw him.

For now, he’d just have to work with what he got.

About four hours in—most of the way up the mountain—he had his first breakthrough. He wasn’t even sure what had caused it. He just threw himself at the problem for long enough, and an idea struck him out of the blue.

Maybe the momentum he was preserving wasn’t the momentum in the strike at all. He consulted the first diagram, which showed a giant, runed-up, bald man—the Star-crushing Archon, he guessed—settling into a fighting stance. The diagram showed a swirl deep in his core.

What if it was like a miniature storm?

Maybe it wasn’t really like his Red Giant Slash at all, even though the output looked kind of similar.

Maybe it was much more like his Storm. But instead of making a storm outside himself, he’d make it within.

Then his physique would become the site of the storm. And every new slash was simply a manifestation of that storm’s powers—just letting a chunk of it out, slash by slash, until he let it all loose on the ninth…

The moment he thought of it, he was sure of it. It was just one of those things, a lightning-bolt moment.

He started up the Skill again, this time trying to start that ‘storm’ inside him. He found a giant peak Divine Profound-grade boulder and slashed a single time.

This time—

Skill learned!

Nine Star-Crushing Slashes [Rare (O)]

It split clean in two.

The output looked almost exactly the same as his Red Giant Slash, but the mechanism made all the difference.

That swirl in the diagram honestly could’ve been anything. He’d thought it was just normal essence flows at first.

He was quite pleased with himself for figuring that out.

For the next half-hour or so, that was. Then he realized that it was a pretty intricate and difficult thing, linking two Slashes together, even with his new understanding. He’d only taken the first step.

By the time he was nearing the peak of the mountain, he felt he’d gotten maybe 70% of the way to two Slashes. He couldn’t remember the last time a Skill had resisted him like this. Even just getting the basics set up was proving to be quite the fight.

It did make it all the more satisfying, though, when he managed any bit of progress.

Right now, at Level 1, he couldn’t do much with this thing. But the moment he got another Level in—could string a blow, then a 99% stronger and 99% bigger blow after that—things would change quite drastically.

He was so caught up in his tinkering he didn’t notice he’d arrived at the peak until he was nearly upon it.

There was a cloud of sparkles lighting up the air, like constellations brought to ground level. He crested a ridge.

There, nestled in a valley at the mountain’s peak, was a haven of star Law.

He found a field of giant crystals stretching miles and miles, a few as big as a house. Each with tiny stars burning within. They radiated Laws like heat.

It wasn’t just Starfire Law down here. There were other Tier 6 Laws and Tier 7 Laws he didn’t recognize—one seemed to be a supernova beam, frozen in the crystal.

It wasn’t just that. This whole field was drowning in Law. As Zane descended, soaking it all in, he imagined a man almost couldn’t help but learn in here, just by spending a few hours wandering.

He’d never felt such a Law-dense place in his life. Every crystal streamed with Law, but when it all came together, it made this great cloud of star-stuff insight. It was no wonder the Overgod had marked this place.

The only thing was, the embers grew pretty intense up here. They were already getting quite severe up near the peak. But in the starfield, he was taking a good 4% damage per second.

His natural regeneration was just barely enough to keep up with it.

After ten minutes, he noticed it was still whittling him down, albeit pretty slowly. He’d just leave, rest, and come back if need be. He figured he could spend a few hours at a time here without too much trouble.

He ambled down the field, looking everywhere he could. There was just so much Law to see. He was having trouble picking a crystal to focus on. Everywhere he looked sparkled invitingly.

The biggest starfire cluster he could find was about as tall as he was—six crystals in one tight bunch. He sat down cross-legged right beside it and got going.

The first thing he noticed about starfire was that it really didn’t feel like fire or lava. That was much clearer now that he got a close-up look at it. It wasn’t even like Solar Flare, which he was used to thinking of as a kind of liquid. The way this thing moved felt more like light—like light made solid. It was a bit counterintuitive. You didn’t see stuff like this in nature normally, at least not up close.

This would need some serious investigating.

“What is it, exactly, that you think you’re doing?”

Zane blinked.

There, standing at the lip of the crater, was a severe-looking man. He was thin, in scholar’s robes, with a fairly bony face. His hair was tied back in a bun.

A little field of Destruction accompanied him, a sphere extending a few feet off his person so that any ember that crossed through would perish before it could hit him.

That field expanded, flexing, growing more intense. There was quite a bit of Destruction in there, enough to put some pressure on Zane.

“Are you Kain?” Zane said. When he saw no one here, he’d kind of assumed—hoped, maybe?—that this guy hadn’t come this year. “I’m meditating,” he explained.

“You claim to seek the Concept of Star-Death?” The man raised a single brow.

“No, Starfire.”

The man snorted. “If you know my name, you must’ve heard I’ve claimed this territory for my own. But you’ve decided to come here regardless.”

“I kind of thought you’d left, honestly,” said Zane.

“No such luck. No doubt you’ve heard what happened the last time a Sect decided to bother me. What I made of the latest Master Iron Flame.”

He flicked his sleeves. “If it's a duel you want, very well then.”

“…Are you using these Starfire crystals?” It seemed to Zane there were a bunch of them around.

“I am not.”

“Can’t I use these, and you use other ones, then?” Zane was a bit puzzled. “I’m not really trying to get in any trouble this time around. Don’t really have time for that.”

He eyed up Kain. This fellow did look like an interesting duel—that amount of Destruction… it was quite motivating for Zane. Still, it wasn’t really what he was here for. He’d rather just keep grinding away at his Concept; he felt he was finally starting to get in the flow.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’ll fight you if I have to. I don’t really see why we do, though. It’s a pretty big field.”

Kain just frowned at him. He looked rather puzzled.

“How exactly are you surviving here? You have no shield.”

“I have a pretty robust physique.”

Kain was silent for a little. “Just what kind of game are you playing?”

“I’m not playing games,” said Zane, a bit exasperated.

“Men don’t come to the starfield simply to study in peace,” said Kain, eyes flashing. “They do not ford treacherous shattered space, risking life and fortune, without ulterior motives. I have no reason to trust you. Perhaps you’ll sully this starfield. Perhaps you’ll seize the crystals here, with an eye to selling them. Perhaps you have the misguided notion you’ll profit off of me! It would hardly be the first time.”

“Look, guy,” said Zane, a bit exasperated. “I don’t know what to tell you. I just want to study this Law. It’s a neat Law.”

Kain’s eyes stayed narrowed. They stared into Zane’s. He blinked back, a bit wide-eyed.

This went on for a good twenty seconds or so.

“I do not know what it is you’ve heard about me,” said Kain at last. “Perhaps that there’s knowledge to be gained from me, insights into Law and Destruction. If you stay here and mean to study, I will not help you. I’m not here to be your master. I am certainly not here to be your friend.”

This fellow was quite full of himself, Zane felt. No one asked him to be anyone’s master.

“I know that. I’m not interested in getting your thoughts. I just want to study.”

“And why would I trust you not to attack me while I meditate?”

“I just arrived. I’m not really sure how it works around here. But I think you’re being a bit paranoid,” Zane informed him. This fellow was starting to get on his nerves. “I’ve come all this way for my Law. I’m not budging. You can try to boot me if you want. Or you can leave me alone, and we can both go do our own thing.”

Kain glowered at him. For a second, he thought he might have a fight on his hands.

Then—

“Very well.” Kain turned, flicking his sleeves. “Try anything, and I will not hesitate to annihilate you.”

“I feel the same way,” Zane informed him.

With that, they picked their crystals—which lay most of the field apart—and started their individual studies.