Lucille insisted that he should have a pair of elemental sword cultivators as bodyguards if he left the palace, so his shadows stood back as Daimon joined the group at the East Dojo.
Danae was there with Krysta and Emy as well as the guys Nathan, Patrick and David.
Patrick was a bow cultivator and of course Danae had her saber, but the rest of the group used swords.
They matched up informally even practicing some moves and counter-moves at slow speed.
After a few rounds Daimon was paired up with Danae again.
He found a couple of ways to counter the counter and manage to succeed for part of the spar.
After the training, the group went to the nearby eaterie. But Daimon stayed back with Danae and they walked through town, the evening air cooling down.
“Have you had a girlfriend before?” Danae asked out of the blue.
“I was focused on other things I guess. So no.”
“Is your mom going to do something crazy if we do this?”
“I’m 35 I think it’s past time that I can make some of my own decisions. I get that 35 feels young from 330, but still, no it’s not a problem.”
“Do you want to?”
When Daimon kissed her, she felt wrapped up by a sphere of water.
“Oh oops,“ he said and retracted the water sphere which had appeared. “There are a few unusual things I was born with.”
“I don’t care,” Danae said and kissed him back.
***
Her 35 year old son was falling in love for the first time. Which had more impact that usual because of his divine gift. Strategically, she couldn’t say she understood but Lucy had married early, and it would be better to keep a distance.
“He likes that Danae practices a different cultivation art. I liked that David was part of a sailing club, something our caretaker would never do.
I think I convinced him to take things slow. Maybe he’ll have consorts someday like his father but he should give it time.”
“Daimon Sr never did woo any others than me.”
“He’s too innocent to expect that now, but someday soon, girls will learn how to appeal to him, and there will be many.”
“You’ve still been empowered?” Anna asked.
“Yep and we’ve got a couple of Cultivation docs that show he is doing fine.”
**
Daimon didn’t really have any hobbies growing up. Swords and later on cultivation was his hobby.
Their little gathering of cultivations introduced him to several new hobbies.
Bouncing a small ball between the six of them without cultivation powers was fine, and last night he learned more about wine.
*
“Mom’s going to cook, not Aunt Lucille?”
He was hosting dinner with his group of friends. He had no idea his mom cooked at all.
It turned out that mom was learning from his aunt and she had a recipe from back in the old days of her Sword sect.
“There were a couple of people in Ant clan who knew this recipe,” mom said.
It was hard to imagine his mom ever being in a clan called Ant clan.
The butler went to the door to greet their guests,
Daimon looked at what mom was making. Potatoes were pretty easy to get around here, but the cheese and meet were staples of mom’s homeland.
“How did you find ground beef?” He asked.
“There’s a trader Lucille knows, he just got a shipment of beef in and I asked the local butcher to grind it. Turns out I had to go by a grinder for another local. That’s the butchers own if we want to make it again.
Cheesy ground beef potatoes fed our whole Ant clan, and it was tasty too. Lucille added a couple of adjustments for the different spices around here.”
“Good evening Grand Elders, my emperor,” Danae said. The others of the group greeted everyone more formally.
“My mother is cooking a famous recipe from her old clan.”
“They must have been special.”
“They were but it’s been 370 years since I was asked to leave the sect and Ant clan. Female sword cultivators were not allowed, and I knew the sword was my way. So I pretended to be a man early in my career. During my shimmering tribulation I was stuck because of my identity. I decided to he neither man or woman and progressed to Shimmering. Even that lead the sect to expel me.”
“So you’ve spent most of your life as a loose cultivator?” One of Danae’s friends asked.
“Much of it. But I had groups I was affiliated with for a time. Lucille and I started a sect, but it grew so fast they lost their values. And I was the first and only consort of Daimon’s father. I trained under three mighty Divine cultivators who served Daimon’s father and would serve him.
The guilders were born during those days. When the Emperor laid down their charters he expected loyalty and found treason.
Tim and my sister have been my helpers and guides through many years as well.”
**
Tim had always thought of himself as a follower of Anna’s philosophy of the sword. But she had changed in the Eternal realm and he expected he would too.
He didn’t expect that he would realize the relationship between a junior and senior cultivator would be nothing into Eternal realm.
He had never experienced Divine realm, and picking up a second sword was strange. 5 generations back his great grand-uncle was a sword cultivator. He didn’t even know, but he realized it didn’t matter. Time was meaningless.
The difference between one cultivator bowing down to another, and disregarding another was only time, so one should always respect fellow Daoists.
Without knowing it, Tim unleashed Eternal cultivation bearing swords of Respect and Protection.
A sword can only protect by destroying the danger, a sword can only respect by breaking through the lies of the disrespecting.
The swords called to him, to go live with the junior sworders in Daimon’s empire. He will need to disguise, but respect knows that sometimes to do trust see the truth respect of a person requires that little deception.
How one treats their juniors says more than how they treat seniors and contemporaries.
Those who try to reap the juniors will find a strong protector within them,
The two spirits of his swords were somewhat unusual. If time was meaningless, then past and present versions of a person could both exist in spirit form.
Anna, from what must have been her early days as a sworder. She was dressed mannishly but he would recognize her anywhere.
And the other spirit was his great-great uncle, representing a wise but not overly-powerful protector. Some who took a chance to save.
***
Tim is gone from his sanctuary, Daimon said.
“He is following the call of his swords,” Anna said. I’m sure his call will be different than mine.”
***
Most of the Shadows tier sworders were still part of the main army training. He disregarded trying to join in with them or the mortal sworders.
He was interested in following the group Daimon spent time with as well. He initially joined another group of shimmering cultivators that interacted with Danae and Daimon’s group.
At shimmering stage, many cultivators had trouble with control so spars were discourage at full power level. Mostly they sparred at peak shadows power level.
There were an endless variety of training exercises, and sometimes things did get heated and shimmering power was unleashed during a spar.
Tim looked like a young cultivator, and he took his place encouraging the others to work through the exercises, and trying to offer a reasonable amount of advice.
Eventually he joined his first sparring session with the group. It was surprisingly hard not to dominate from hundreds of years of practice and real fighting.
He could access the shadows stage but it was surprising hard to restrain himself compared to when he was an elemental cultivator.
After a couple spars, he was accepted in the group but everyone mentioned preparing for the first annual tournament.
He had totally forgot about that tournament. There were 30 elemental cultivators in the Empire and Anna and he had agreed it was important to assess them. Adding in the shadows and shimmering cultivators had come later.
“I’ll be there, he promised before leaving.” He would have to meet with Anna in secret to explain what he was trying to do. He could return to normal after the tournament.”
**
Anna was quietly chaperoning Daimon’s pre-tournament bar crawl. She was several blocks away from the group but she could hear most of what was being said.
Eternal implied small differences in space were not a big deal.
At first she thought one of the elemental cultivators had a question for her, but then it was unmistakeable. A brand new Eternal cultivator was broadcasting their Princeps. She thought she was better at controlling hers now if she did find another Eternal cultivator.
He pulled her into an alleyway. There was a newfound confident strength in him.
“I’m not ready to come back yet, but I wanted you to know, I’m in disguise with a group of shimmering cultivators. It’s not Daimon and Danae’s group but they are close friends with their group. I hope to demonstrate respect if it’s in need of demonstrating.”
After the talking, Tim kissed her fiercely.
It may have taken the eternal realm to get there, but he was a man now.
**
Derek watched as the shadow rounds of the tournament were held.
Tournament scale suppression equipment was just becoming available in the area. The arrival of an expert in maintaining such power suppression systems was what allowed the tournament to happen.
120 rings were set for the Shadow cultivators of the Alliance. 30 rings for the Iron or equivalent cultivators, 6 rings for himself and the other shimmering cultivators and 1 ring for the ultimate contest between Elemental cultivators.
No one was sure how to contain the powers their leaders could unleash. And even the elemental ring cost more than all 120 shadow realm rings.
Fire was rippling through his Qi, his transformation to being a new elemental cultivator would happen immediately after this tournament. He could borrow The powers of Fire to defeat all of his competitors.
***
It was pandemonium how Anna had arranged the tournament. The early rounds of all the tournaments would be played simultaneously on the 157 suppression rings.
Many medical cultivators had signed up for any extra healing required beyond what could be suppressed.
The members of his shimmering group were gradually sent hour by hour to one of the six shimmering rings. Those who lost joined the cordoned off viewing areas.
Since he was taking a spot from the others he wanted to give everyone he defeated an insight.
His first opponent overextended and tried to win the fight in one surge. Demonstrating the flaws of the plan. Tim defeated the combatant without using any additional strength, simply playing a defensive game and exploiting overreaches.
“Excellent form. Mister Virani” said an elemental cultivator who was watching.
4 of their group made it past the first round. In the second round he fought a cultivator who had become a bit too stuck their ways, using only a few standard moves. They were one of the few bow cultivators in the Empire.
They would fire an arrow, execute a special shield maneuver and then wait to fire again when the shield ran out.
One thing you couldn’t limit yourself on was your toughness, but it was a good lesson anyway, never expect an afraid opponent.
He attacked when his opponent attacked and then when the shield effect failed.
His third round opponent had a strong late-shimmering control of his cultivation, but his battle and tactical sense was lacking. Identifying the lesson this one needed, he struck as soon as battle began, his foe stumbled, but managed to recover with abundant shimmering power. Focusing on infusing his sword with his power, his opponent was forced to hurriedly unleash the power to stop Tim’s second assault.
This guy did have a bit more acumen, but such short cut abilities never had the same cohesion strength. His struck the near-elemental cauldron of qi and the attack backfired.
Unfortunately, his sparring partner’s power was so close to peak shimmering that the backlash hurt him through the suppression.
Healers came to the ring, one of them said to him. “A very finely done disrupt. There are not many who could learn such a thing. Don’t feel guilty about that.”
There were some byes through the first few rounds so that they were left 64 shimmering cultivators after three rounds.
The final 16 of each cultivation group would fight sequentially until the grand finale. The 15 elemental cultivators who had won their first match, plus the winner of the shimmering finale would battle for the grand prize.
The top shadows, iron and shimmering cultivators would also receive a prize.
Daimon had received a bye to the round of 64, and many of the top shimmering cultivators had similar byes through to 128.
Tim’s fourth round was against one of Danae’s friends.
**
“We thought he was tested for a moment in the third round, but no. He’s been extremely professional but our friends in Katie’s group said he joined about four months ago. My guess is he’s someone new with experience in the army somewhere else. Low-mid shimmering with a ton of experience. I wish the Grand Elder was here to offer his thoughts,” Danae said.
“What should I do?” Asked Emily.
“Make it a battle of qi. Don’t give him an excuse to trick you.”
Danae watched as Emily uncomfortably flung herself towards the stranger. The qi was wildly off kilter. It was truly dangerous for both of them. Had she not seen how this Jacob disrupted his last opponents attack.
Instead of facing the attack, Jacob showed surprising speed and avoided it, skirted away and to the side.
Emily desperately tried to recover, she parried two blows but one of them was deflected with her fist only and the next send her to the group.
Emily was upset and the medics took a quick look at her so she didn’t talk to Danae.
She had to fight Jeffrey from another strong group next.
Jeffrey was a good positional, counter attacking cultivator. High shimmering as most of those remaining were. She thought she was reasonably good tactically, medium shimmering, but Daimon told her they’d been a more advanced tactical group compared to the norm.
Daimon learned from the Grand Elder and his mother, the Eternal Elder. And he taught the rest of the group a lot.
Jeffry started with big heavy chopping attacks. If you tried to dodge them only slightly, you would find they had a hidden width to them.
She stepped way away from some and deflected others. The first fifteen seconds of battle was reactive, then she began to demonstrate shimmering multiplicity. Her sword lost its form and became multiple strike in a major echo of shadow sword fighting.
Jeffry tried to burst through them with his power firm, and deflect them with impressive hand speed, but after she avoided the super-chop she resumed her quick attacks and Jeffry was overwhelmed and at last unable to stop one of her shimmers from cutting.
He had an impressive plan A but he couldn’t stop her plan.
**
Daimon dodged the powerful spear qi, rotating to push the wielder even further.
Each attack of Mariah’s spear threatened to crush through his defenses.
He poked at Mariah’s defenses when he could.
Finally he fell to a spear strike. He expected to be thrown out of the ring, an automatic loss. At least down long enough to fall to the follow up.
Mariah struggled to follow up. Repositioning the spear was slow. He rose and deflected a spear that wasn’t expecting him ready.
The intense feeling of the fight fell away to a comfortable back and forth battle. It became clear that Mariah was struggling to ensure his attacks. At three minutes it was the longest fight in the shimmering tournament.
Finally his sword struck true and deep, and the suppression resisted his sword.
Mariah was impaled by it so Daimon waited for the medics to properly remove his sword.
It was his new sword since his coronation.
*
Daimon and Danae both advanced to the Round of 32. Which would be the last round before the final 16s in each stage were played.
With the elemental cultivators waiting for the grand finale, Anna was free to watch them both.
It was obvious who Tim was, his Eternals were still way too loud to her. He had kept his battles clinical to teach something to each matchup.
She made sure Daimon and Danae were in different quadrants of the bracket and tried to seed things reasonably.
Daimon had an easier matchup this round than last. Also his last battle seemed to give him more confidence. She wanted to see Daimon able to cultivate and defend himself so she was happy.
Lucille was busy with various guests who had come to watch the tournament.
Danae matched with an opponent who was very resilient and shrugged off her multi-attacks. She was tough as well, and both fighters resisted each other’s attacks.
Danae was able to shift to a more concentrated attack style and eke out a victory.
Tim demonstrated the three option tactical approach to his opponent. When both sides could counter each other’s attacks finding the right attack to out-think the opponent was key.
His opponent was still trying to counter Tim’s first attack and he had moved on from it.
One of the shimmering combatants was days away from breaking into Elemental cultivation. He was relying only the pseudo-elemental power to dominate his opponents.
With each group down to 16 cultivators there was a short break while the finale stage was getting ready. The rest of the contests would be fought in the final ring with everyone’s attention.
**
Daimon and the other shimmering finalists congratulated the Shadows and Iron finalists, and the elemental finalists greeted everyone also.
“Good job guys, no matter what happens from here, you’ve accomplished something special.”
The final shadows matchup was a battle between two cultivators beginning to establish Iron sword cultivation. The final Iron cultivation matchup was more tactical.
He felt confident, even as everyone was the best.
When the dust settled, the final two rounds loomed. A peak Shimmering cultivator who wasn’t especially tactical was his next opponent, while Danae faced the tactical master who no one knew.
They were excited to make it this far, but the idea of making it to the finals was more exciting.
Daimon wasn’t sure if he could endure peak shimmering, but he planned to battle ferociously, and they were fighting in a ring with elemental level protection so he was fine.
He polished his sword and went out to the ring for the first match of the Shimmering semis.
Daimon was ready to evade if Derek unleashed his ultimate peak shimmering attacks.
It was only after a bit of establishing guard positions abs feeling out his opponents strength that he was struck by Derek’s sword. His deflection had been completely overrun by the power of Derek’s attack, and it was all Daimon could do to remember mom and get up. The second attack was obviously elemental as fire started to burn through his abdomen until the suppression caught up.
Danae was there, and mom. They helped the medics take him back to be healed. He felt tingly, and a bit nauseous.
**
The tournament paused for twenty minutes as the directors wanted to look after the Emperor before continuing.
Derek stood apart from the other remaining competitors and no one went to talk to them.
Finally Daimon, Anna and Lucille returned. Daimon welcomed back his guards who had been forced to watch, and they formed a cordon around the Daimon so he could watch the rest of the matches.
Danae was very good, in high shimmering but she couldn’t adjust and find tactical solutions as quickly as their mystery opponent.
Jacob did reveal that he was at least upper-mid shimmering, countering a power strike if Danae’s with one of his own.
The crowd didn’t know Jacob, but they were politely encouraging him. “Don’t let him intimidate you!” One of the elemental 15 left said.
Finally the Shimmering finals began.
**
He couldn’t just overpower Jacob so Derek instead used the possibly of a victorious chain reaction to control and confine what Jacob could do.
Jacob had been hiding his full strength and now he unleashed high tier but not speak shimmering.
Not good enough, Derek struck in one place, and feinted in another.
**
Tim knew, Derek believed his elemental attacks could not be stopped in shimmering. The kid had forgotten that in a real battle there was always someone stronger and to an elemental cultivator his attacks were weak and poorly formed.
When Daimon reached high Shimmering he would show off a few ways to resist such poorly firmed attacks. Without actually ascending into Elemental, Derek couldn’t form a good attack and this kind of thing would actually harm his cultivation long-term.
Trying to stay in a lower realm to win a tournament was the opposite of the message they wanted to send.
He had wanted to defeat Derek with purely tactical skill but showing him that there’s a higher target was more important.
Tim took the Fire attack head on and did not flinch. He had no intent of actually attacking, but to make the point stick, one sword became two, and the spirit of a young Anna appeared and deflected Derek’s next attack. His uncle appeared and with the tiniest wisp of power repelled the attack.
“Ok you’ve made your point.”
Anna took the stage then. “Let me explain. When a cultivator reaches Eternal stage, there is always something that drives them, which they must act on immediately. For me, it was the injustice of the guilders.
Tim has reached the Eternal stage, and his drive was to protect the spirit of respectful exchange of pointers. Our second Eternal Elder! Tim?”
“My guiding principles in the Eternal realm have become respect and protection, so I could only pursue protecting respectful behavior.
I hoped to impart a lesson in each of my battles today. Not to show that I’m better. I’ve spent most of my life looking up to Anna, and seeing her as better. But from an Eternal perspective, we all ate the cultivator we began with on the first day, and the person we will become at our pinnacle.
Any motions of pride and superiority based on cultivation stage or anything else are foolish.
These tournaments are a chance to hone your abilities, not to adhere to the group definitions by the letter of the law so you can dominate.
Derek, you are on the edge of Elemental cultivation, the most important thing to focus on is preparing for your rise. Secondly, to challenge yourself, and center yourself in the new realm.
It was not fair for you to face an Eternal opponent, proceed to join the Elemental final 16. It will help you understand what world awaits.
Anna and I do not know what awaits us in eternity, no one knows where they can go until they start to explore.
Losing a sparring match is often more beneficial than winning.”
**
Tim’s performance without ever stepping beyond Shimmering realm showed just how skilled their eternal elders were.
No one was sure if 2 eternal elders could exchange pointers safely, but everyone wanted to watch that fight.
Daimon and Danae were the only ones who had a chance to, however.
“It’s just the safe, low power limit of eternal, but still,” Danae said.
The training center his mom and Tim had built for their spars were made of ridiculously tough materials, but it shone as the two clashed.
“Finally Tim has reached an equal strength to mom.”
“Why does Tim had a sword spirit that looks like your mom?”
“It’s my mom as a young sworder. Eternal realm is weird like that. One of mom’s spirits is my dad, the other is the spirit of a sword that was destroyed.”
*^^
Tim and Anna decided to go temper their abilities in real combat. With Lucille in the Divine realm, the Empire should be safe.
They rooted out guilder strongholds and fought a few battles to contain necromancy, but it was another Sect nation which made them pause.
**
Six months after Tim and Anna left, Lucille had to lead the Empire in defense against a group of clans. Nomadic they had wandered into the area and started to raid and take whatever they wanted.
Two weeks in, Lucille had settled one of the war chiefs in a valley near Empire lands, the other war chiefs were slain. Lucille established a rule. Be the first to surrender and gain benefits.
**
Anna and Tim were lurking about pretending to be Shimmering cultivators in a mercenary army.
Lucille kept Anna informed and asked for advice, but ultimately her incredible persuasion was able to convince part of the enemy to turn against the invaders.
**
Lucille taught them for a while, since Damian’s mom was gone, hunting Guilder enemies.
Danae reached Elemental realm first. Earth wasn’t a common element in their family’s story but when the earths appeared with that golden color, she sighed. Danae must at least become a Consort, like Anna had been.
Finding Anna and Tim she told them everything that had happened, and they set about searching the land for two worthy sabers for a divine cultivators and consort.
***
Danae’s whole family were here. The Emperor’s had sold some land for the clan at a very competitive price. So they would move here after the ceremony.
Her mother-in-law became a companion throughout the process. Danae’s dress was more expensive than she could imagine.
“First you will become his consort. A new wing of the palace has been built as your residence. But then, the time will come yo be his wife, to join him in everything. I went through this with his father.”
“What was Daimon Sr like?”
“Strong, yet gentle. Young, yet wise. He was 260 years younger than me yet his wisdom was beyond his youth. Eventually he became an Air elemental cultivator and we would medicate together as his Air burbled within my waters. Let his waters rest against your Earth, and you will both have wisdom beyond.”
~~
“It is traditional in my birth land, to gift my Consort-to-be two weapons. One which represents her lineage or heritage and one that represents the empire’s own.
As to the latter, as we are newly establish I drew on the old traditions of my mother’s homeland. At great effort, our Elders recovered a saber of one of the Saints of old. The Saint was fallen from grace, but his Saber shall serve my empire. It is my gift to you, to consecrate my devotion to you, Consort Murray.”
“Thank you, your highness, I will protect this gift, and learn from the spirit of this Saber.”
“The first saber will be known as the Saber of the Mountain. It does not yield to any strike below the Eternal realm. This saber was forged by the greatest known smiths, strengthened by the rare earths of your clan’s homelands. We hope to honor your elders as we accept you as our own. A century from now, it will become a mighty spirit weapon as well.”
*
There was something different in that Daimon was both the Emperor and source of divine power, whereas Anna never figured out how much Daimon Sr had access to the centuries old source of power in the old empire.
Tim and I had gone to dinner at the Old Emperor’s city. More and more the original Emperor was being swallowed up by Daimon’s empire.
There was a sudden shift in the power of Daimon’s divinity, and Tim and I both noticed immediately.
But then again Daimon Sr was so young that I never had sex with him until we were married. That was different this time around.
They had returned to their normal duties, residing in the ‘Senior Wing’ of the palace.
“Perhaps I could dress up as young Anna?” I teased Tim.
So the akwardness went both ways until Daimon requested their presence.
“I want to recognize Tim as my father, not to replace Dad, mom but you have been another Dad, and it’s not weird to me. Can we have some kind of ceremony for you two?” Daimon asked.
“How should I address you, Mother of my beloved?”
“Hmm I never had a daughter. You can call me mom or mother. Now I think you two need to actually get married. For your dad and I, this was a quiet ceremony and quite personal to us. Eventually it would be publicized of course.”
**
