Leaving the destroyed and frozen over world of Jinrisa behind, Anton hoped it was an exception. Sadly, he knew that there were likely far too many other examples. Exactly how many he couldn’t estimate.
He might even encounter others on the way to the border. Or perhaps he had already missed some, theck of signs of life making them less obvious. That was a thought which he chose not to dwell on. Cultivating anger would only make him more liable to act recklessly. He’d done enough of that already throughout his life, and anger wasn’t pleasant to begin with.
So he continued on his journey, heading towards the border between upper and lower realms. Nothing else dyed his journey to the same degree, though he still took time to survey interestings and stars. He didn’t encounter any other cultivators, though he wasn’t focusing on anything but adjacent systems.
But eventually, he arrived at his destination. The star Akrys, chosen both for its position on the border, and for its size. It was thergest star Anton had visited, a red supergiantrger than the blue supergiant the twins shared by almost a full order of magnitude. This wasrge enough that if Ceretos was in the same system, it would be <em>inside</em> of the star. But despite the radius being hundreds of times as much, the actual mass of the star was hardly more than ten times as much.
It was significantly brighter than most stars Anton had witnessed, but rtively cool. That was not an aberration from its type, but theoretically typical. At least, with what measurements that could be managed from a great distance when spying others of the same type.
There were only a fews, but as Anton began to survey them he was surprised to find that one of them had life on it. No signs of human cultivators, but it was teeming with nts and animals. He hadn’t been able to sense anything special about it from a distance due to the dominating presence of the star itself.
Hended in an area of ins, intending to look for signs of humans in the more open area. When he did so, he identally spooked a colony ofrgish rodents. Some sort of ground squirrels without bushy tails, perhaps? Either way, they scurried into their burrows. Anton would have thought nothing more of it, if he didn’t sense some of the other members of the colony making their way to the surface. In particr, a group with natural energy.
There was nothing impressive about their cultivation, if he looked at things on a grand scale. One of them had the approximate energy equivalent of mid Body Tempering. Nor were there dozens of the creatures with that same power. Even so, Anton stayed to see how they reacted. He didn’t have any need to fight random creatures protecting their homes, so if they were aggressive he would just fly away.
The group came out of the tunnel in sequence, and then began to fan out around him. And then, one of them extended a tendril of energy towards him as it began to chitter. That wasn’t particrly strange, but then it stopped. As if… waiting for a response. Moreover, the tendril of energy came with a wave of emotions. Mostly fear- and bravery.
Anton did his best to process what was happening. Animals using group tactics was nothing new. Beasts with cultivation were not umon anywhere with high natural energy. It was the sounds that stuck out. Anton didn’t have the feeling that they were trying to scare him off. At least, not directly.
“Are they… talking…?” Anton wondered. He tried to project a feeling of serenity. “I’m sorry I don’t speak yournguage.” If they weren’t speaking, nobody would be around to make the situation embarrassing. And obviously he didn’t expect them to understand his words any more than he understood them, but perhaps they might understand the patterns of speech in turn.
The fuzzy creatures stood upright on their hind legs, but only came up to Anton’s knees at best. They chittered among each other, shifting slightly as they did so. Did Anton sense curiosity, or was that simply his own desire?
He listened carefully to their sounds- and did a little bit of prying into the colony below where the rest waited. Just as he was beginning to pick out a pattern to the sounds, they were interrupted.
An eagle dove, extending its talons. Anton red at it, attempting to suppress it with his aura. Either it was very brave or had extremely dull energy senses, because while he didn’t burden it with his full might he disyed at least the power of a Life Transformation cultivator. Anton’s hands moved quickly, drawing an arrow in his bow and taking a shot just in front of the eagle. It swerved away quickly when it saw the attack, circling back into the sky and away.
Anton wasn’t normally one to interrupt the cycle of nature, but this was a special case. First, he at most interrupted a single meal. Wild beasts might live in an unstable way that meant missing a meal could be dangerous, but the eagle had some cultivation of its own and could easily catch <em>something</em> even if exhausted. And second, if he was right and these upright standing rodents had some level of sapience and it was very much worth protecting that.
Looking back at them after he fired the shot from his bow, the creatures prostrated themselves. The one Anton thought was the leader continued to chitter. The feeling that was projected was not quite one of submission but instead more like pleading. Anton didn’t quite understand, but he was beginning to put together a picture.
For the moment he would continue to go with the idea that these fellows had a level of sapience and speech. He understood multiplenguages. First was the mainnguage spoken by human cultivators that had proliferated with them, but Anton had picked up othernguages from forgotten and disassociateds he’d visited. Then there was the signnguage of the void ants. It had been created for the express purpose of interacting with humans, but it was still a different variety. Finally and most relevantly, Anton had experience with Fuzz, though the wolf’smunication skills hadn’t been a fullnguage until after he ascended.
Still, Anton was confident he could figure this out. Was it an unnecessary distraction? Perhaps. Was he going to try because the rodents were cute? Not <em>just</em> because of that. But he was going to try.
And even though his words wouldn’t mean anything to them yet, he wanted to confirm that theymunicated verbally so he continued to speak, while also attempting gestures. “Is all of this territory yours?” he waved his arm around the area. Perhaps he started with something awkward to parse, but it was the first thing he thought of.
The leader of the beasts raised his head. It <em>also</em> gestured with its forelimbs. Pointing and chittering. One thing in one direction, slightly different sounds pointing in another. And some more fearful sounds pointing to the sky- and the distant eagle.
Anton did his best tomunicate with them, but he couldn’t reallymunicate much more than directions. Though the fact that they seemed to understand <em>that</em> was sufficient evidence to support his theory. Ultimately, he didn’t want to stay around disrupting the colony’s activities forever so he pointed to a nearby hill. “I am going to go over there now.” He gave a half bow. Pointing seemed to be understood in the grand sense, but other gestures weren’t shared.
He kept an eye on the creatures as he left. They didn’t follow after him, and the majority of the guardians returned to the underground as he left. The other members of the colony returned to the surface where some seemed to be keeping watch and some searched the nearby grasses for insects and other tasty morsels. Anton continued to listen to their sounds to try to pick up thenguage they had, at whatever level it existed. He saw some of them conversing with each other in hushed tones, gesturing towards the hill, and likely him. He also thought he picked out others telling the story of the eagle, or at least they gestured to the sky.
As time passed, Anton searched his thoughts for what he shouldpare the creatures to. They had at first appeared to be in the broad category of rodents, but watching them more that didn’t quite fit. He was trying to remember a particr creature he’d seen before that resembled them. They were certainly mammals, but the fact that they stood upright was an oddity. Their tails weren’t particrly long nor short, neither bushy nor hairless. Ah, there it was. He thought the word was meerkats. They might not be the same thing- the same with the eagle from before- but that was the closest he could get. And it was entirely possible they had ancestors transnted from the same ce.
All of the meerkats went inside when night came. Anton dozed off, not really needing to sleep but just wanting to rx. He took the time to organize his thoughts from the journey, about the Jinrisa, and just what he might aplish here on the border. Besides binding this star, of course. Though if these creatures were sapient, could he forsake his personal rules and bind their star without permission? Ah, it didn’t matter. He would bind <em>some</em> star on the border, it didn’t have to be this one even though it was nice. It would be years before he had the option anyway.
-----
When morning came, Anton watched the sun rise. He trained his cultivation, absorbing some of the power of the star that rained down upon him while also drawing on the internal power- and the devotion that made its way towards him even though he didn’t ask for it.
His neighbors woke up with the sun as well, warming themselves in the early morning light. But in addition to that, some of them poked and prodded each other while looking at him. And then one of them- one of the guards with a lesser cultivation- began to skitter its way towards him, climbing the hill while his head swiveled back and forth. He didn’t forget to watch the sky as he approached Anton.
When he got perhaps a hundred feet away, he stopped. Anton smiled at the little fellow. “I know we can’t really talk, but you cane sit with me,” Anton gestured to the ground next to himself. The meerkat seemed hesitant, so Anton returned to his cultivation, though he kept the beast in his senses.
The meerkat slowly approached closer, standing next to Anton and looking at the sun. Then it began to circte its energy. It was clumsy and unpracticed, though Anton couldn’t really expect much else from a group seeming to not onlyck formal techniques but most likely getting all of their natural energy from what they ate.
Soon enough Anton realized the little guy was trying to copy <em>him</em>, though the arrangement of meridians inside of a meerkat was obviously going to be different based on their wildly varied body shapes and sizes. Still, Anton hadn’t been teaching new students for centuries to back down from a challenge. The meerkat seemed to be doing just fine as it made a connection to the sun’s energy, but Anton had to slow down significantly to make sure the little guy didn’t hurt himself. He wanted to point out the path directly, but he didn’t want to spook off the little guy with any sudden movements. So he continued to slowly cultivate, doing his best to make his process as clear as possible. He would normally include bodily exercises, but he really had no idea what such a beast needed to develop.
Sometime around midday, a small flock of eagles came by. That was a bit unusual, as such birds tended to be more solitary. Either way, Anton took note- especially because he recognized the one from the day before.
Anton’spanion noticed them as well, and started to run back towards the colony. But when the eagles began to dive towards scurrying meerkats, Anton took a shot. This time he clipped one of the returning eagle’s feathers. Perhaps he wouldn’t get the message until injured. He also shot several other arrows to deter the rest, bursts of visible energy causing them to recoil. They all flew off, but Anton had the feeling they kept looking at him as they did so.
Anton’s littlepanion ran back up the hill when he saw things were safe, then tentatively approached Anton. Anton watched as he carefully pointed at Anton’s bow, then to the sky. Did he want Anton to kill the eagles? Well, he might if they kept causing trouble. But that didn’t seem to be it.
The meerkat waved one arm to the side, while the other pressed against its chest. It chittered, and Anton got the vague feeling that… it wanted him to teach it how to shoot a bow.
Well, why not? Sure its arms weren’t made to wield a bow, and at its size it couldn’t expect to get that much power from one, but wasn’t that what cultivation was for? Making people able to do things they couldn’t naturally?
Anton wondered if he had any string that would be a low enough draw weight. Other materials too. Or should he jump straight to energy bows? So many choices.