ALL NOVEL 431. Three Months
Demi-Dominators like E'livia were rare in Cylek but not impossible to find, something around less than one in every hundred thousand Overlords. Cylek had over five million Overlords. That meant around fifty Demi-Dominators.
Frankly, Shen was shocked at how powerful the Shaft was. He was only talking about Cylek! It was the size of a small province, but even then, those numbers were staggering. And the Overlord Realm was wide beyond Shen's understanding, with many other regional powers and huge cities.
Cylek alone had half the number of Overlords the entire Alliance had in C-ranks. Moreover, Shen doubted the Alliance had one hundred C-rank domain-holders!
Cylek had not only numbers but also quality.
In the Alliance, developing a domain at C-rank was a mark of great talent and skill. In the Shaft, it was almost the expected step to take before breaking through to the Seeker power level. If you already had a domain when you broke through, you became a Dominator instead of an average Seeker. It was a mark of status, and if Shen's suspicions weren't wrong, it meant extra protection once you were slingshot into the Seeker Realm and the vultures came.
Lawful Dominators like Shen were rarer than Demi-Dominators, but they lacked actual power, so they didn't matter as much. Potential counted for little more than bragging rights in the Shaft because it had so many cultivators that, statistically, every organization could find someone who learned quickly to nurture. No one had unlimited resources, so there was no reason to raise every immense talent you found.
Potential was even less significant in Cylak. Sects were similar to gangs in many ways, but gang members weren't sect disciples who trained in enclosed spaces for a very long time and only left for minor missions for tempering now and then, usually supervised without their knowledge. Likewise, corporation profit-hunters weren't coddled; they had to show results, or they were repeatedly demoted until they were fired.
There were some unspoken rules to protect children in Cylek, as mortality was so high that the city would've burned itself to the ground long ago if it didn't constantly renew the ranks. Inmigrants like Shen were common, but so were people fleeing. The result as a net positive for people coming in, but everyone still needed fresh blood to keep the city afloat.
That wasn't the only rule. Even the most unhonorable corporations seldom sent a stronger fighter than the stronger fighter that had been present when a battle started. In other words, if only Conceptualizers were in a location there when a fight started, only Conceptualizers would see it to the end. Unless, of course, it involved key places or big interests, but everyone knew not to abuse the rules, or they would find out why no one did it.
However, the rules also meant every non-child Overlord was fair game, and five million Overlords meant five million potential killers and victims.
The rules for engagement for Overlords were more fluid and came down to honor and interest. Some offenses couldn't be ignored, but sometimes, it wasn't worth it to lose even more people to achieve retribution. When you're literally surrounded by enemies, you must find the right balance between not looking weak and not overreaching.
Anyway, E'livia being one of Cylek's Fifty Demi-Dominator Hegemons—which could be more or less than that at any given point, but the name had stuck—meant she had clout. After a few weeks spent conquering a few key places where they found a power vacuum, she acquired the money and connections to buy a nice high-end triplex apartment on one of the eighty-one skyscrapers that overlooked the rest of the city.
It was night, and Shen sat alone on the roof's gazebo, watching the flying cars for rich but weak cultivators and the also flying Overlords, most of whom had cyberware. Purple, blue, and violet neon lights mixed with bright ads everywhere. Cylek was a vertically multi-layered city, and looking down meant seeing a seemingly endless crazy maze of streets.
Shen didn't belong in that fancy place. His budding gang was somewhere down below where the sun didn't reach. E'livia, however, was a few days from being named CEO of BioEngineering, and this place was safer.
They were a couple and didn't hide it from anyone. They also didn't hide that Shen would run a gang while E'livia would run a corporation. However, their members would be different, each belonging to their own separate organization. E'livia and Shen's organizations would also never help each other in a fight. The rule extended to Shen and E'livia themselves. If they ever helped, whoever was helped would leave their organization and join the other for good.
He wasn't sure people believed that yet, but it didn't matter. They would learn in time. But even if they didn't, E'livia was a Demi-Dominator. She would do whatever the hell she wanted to a great extent before she crossed too many bottom lines and forced the other Fifty to move.
There was no grand scheme behind their choices. Well, there was one grand scheme to be had: E'livia's, when she learned how to do it. She felt she was too naive in the intrigue department and wanted to improve. She felt the overly cutthroat world of corporations would be ideal for that.
Shen himself just wanted to reconnect with his origins to a point while also challenging himself to find honor in society's underbelly. How far would he go in the world of crime? How far should he go? It would be a great learning experience.
The professional split was because they didn't want to depend too much on the other. It would cheapen any lesson and make things too easy. Struggling might not increase willpower too much in the Shaft, but there was still value in learning things through experience the hard way. Not everything was about willpower.
The important part here was that there was a real danger, at least for Shen. None of the Fifty would move against E'livia alone, but any of them could come and kill Shen one day before she could react. Probably. Well, at least he would definitely die if a few of the Fifty united and stalled E'livia while another came for him. He couldn't defeat a Demi-Dominator, period. Some people might consider Cylek a make-believe city, but how he and her navigated it might seal their fate.
To tell the truth, the feeling of danger was exciting.
He was currently focusing both on the Axioms of Reality and himself. He used his Allvision to look at what the Law of Extremity looked like in the world below and at Un'Re's edge, the spear floating before him. He used his qi to feel what he could, and he really analyzed every single "texture" of the Law of Extremity. He touched it with his hand. He let himself get cut. He felt it with his every sense.
Shen had to copy-paste the Law into himself, but it wasn't as simple as it sounded. A Law wasn't an image he could paint. It was filled with Concepts and a complex pattern of meanings and interactions with other Laws. He had to understand the underlying workings of a Law to copy it.
Yet, it also wasn't overly challenging. Law Overlords were supposed to master Laws, and his mind could comprehend things quickly, especially because he saw everything clearly with his Allvision. It only took him a month to get halfway through to mastering the Law of Extremity.
There was no going further than that, though.
It wasn't exactly a matter of balance, as it had once been the case for his perfectly balanced True Path. His other Laws didn't need to be as strong as each other. No, it was ironically a matter of Change. He couldn't Change just one part of himself without Changing everything else just as much. He realized that overcoming the Selection of Change placed him on some sort of level, tier, step, or realm in the Grand Path of Ideals. Everything about him had to Change. He could only ignore the rule until it reached a certain threshold.
That seemed a huge issue initially because cultivators cemented their feelings, beliefs, and personalities as they grew strong. That's the reason even nigh-omnipotent beings could behave like immature children. Maybe that's why Nmara acted stupidly in the past.
However, Shen discovered he had the opposite issue: the Step of Change he was currently in made him too fluid.
Working on the Law of Extremity had affected his personality more than it should have. He was sharper himself, easier to anger, less tolerant of mistakes, and faster at cutting obstacles before himself instead of wondering if he should cut them at all.
Ironically, the way to deal with that was to meditate more on the Law of Extremity. The more he understood it, the more he actually mastered it. Maybe not in terms of "percentage;" he was still stuck at 99.5%—the 0.5% being his gains in Cylek. But he went beyond copy-paste territory and stepped firmly into making the Law inside himself bow to his wishes instead of the other way around.
That was called "stabilizing your cultivation" in the missives about general cultivation knowledge he had purchased. Well, it was called that in the few that mentioned the Grand Path of Ideals.
So, although Shen could grow stronger faster by just cultivating another Law, he would rather not. He estimated it would take him a few extra weeks every time he progressed 0.5% in any Law to decrease the influence of the Laws of Reality on himself.
The annoying part was that his One Self didn't believe in the Step of Change. It fought him whenever he tried to make the Laws inside him match Reality. It also fought him now, as he fought to become the master of his Laws before reaching 100%. Just because every single thing inside him was his whole self instead of a part, it didn't mean there couldn't be an internal hierarchy. His entire One Self wanted to be on top though.
He didn't even know how that was possible, as his entire One Self should be contributing with his One Self, not fighting each other. It made no sense.
Annoying Path.
Well, at least he had a way of relaxing.
"I'm home!" E'livia yelled from the door below and started removing her clothes as she rushed to him.
Shen sighed. "A man's duty is never done," he said in mock defeat, and then, she was upon him.
"Denied," a cyberware tentacle monster said from half of the Conference Hall that was covered in darkness. The young Lawful Dominator kneeling before him couldn't pierce through the Domain of Silent Denial. His voice was deep and raspy. "I didn't stop your father from leaving Cylek, but he did leave. He left us. His gang. His family. We have no obligation to you."
"Octo-sama!" the cultivator said, bashing his head on the polished obsidian floor. His skull cracked. Blood flowed. "I beg you! Give me a chance to prove myself! Invest in me, and I'll be better than all your other children!"
There was silence, then the humanoid head with dozens of cyberware eyes, attached to the enormous metal mass from which came the tentacles, said, "You did your homework. You know I like arrogance. You cannot succeed if you're content with your lot or believe you can't reach further. But you didn't do your homework well enough."
"What do you mean, Octo-sama?"
"Never make a claim you cannot back up. Cylek's latest uncrowed Lawful Dominator arrived three months ago. You cannot beat him. But you can try. Defeat him, and I'll take you as mine."
"Thank you for the opportunity, Octo-sama!" the youth said, stood up, and left.
The metallic tentacle monster looked pensive at the departing figure. Honor would require him to take the child in if he succeeded. The creature had no space for another child; the gang's resources were stretched thin already as they were. But it might be worth it to get rid of the newcomer. He showed signs of preparing to establish a proper gang, and gangs always expanded until they were stopped. Their territories were too near.
He knew it had been a mistake not to react as soon as the couple arrived, but no one cared about the first dojo they conquered in the Deeps or the subsequent small places. A small price to pay to please a Demi-Dominator who had been an unknown factor.
But now it was obvious the couple hadn't come on vacations; they meant business. Thus, it was time to get rid of them.
The boy would succeed or be a fitting first feller. The only shame was that his enemies would also profit from the results, whichever they were, not just him. At least only he would have bragging rights if the kid succeeded.
The assassination attempt would happen in a few days at the least, considering the youth liked to investigate his targets. So, for now, he put the matter to the back of his mind, closed his eyes, and got back to meditating.
He was one step away from breaking through. He knew it. He just needed one insight.
Only one.