Orion was preparing to receive Selphira with the thodical calm of soone who had planned every aspect of confrontation during months of careful preparation.
He'd obtained several ssages during the last hour, birds arriving at regular intervals with updates about Selphira's group's advancent as they approached Goldcrest territory. Everything was unfolding exactly as he'd anticipated, perfect timing confirming his predictions about how they would react had been accurate.
ssage at hour 0: Selphira and Arturo departed with 35 companions. Speed approximately 80 kiloters per hour.
ssage at hour 1: Group passed checkpoint 1... Still 37 mbers. No additional forces detected.
ssage at hour 2: Approaching outer periter of Goldcrest territory. Maintaining 'cautious' pace.
Every update confird the pattern. Small group, cautious approach and no big military backup because none more could be spared.
Everything according to plan.
Getting dressed was the most tedious part now…
Not because there were complicated preparations, quite the opposite. There was simplicity to it that felt almost anticlimactic given the magnitude of what was about to occur.
There were no armors to put on, no standardized weapons to prepare.
This wasn't a conflict where tal and steel would determine the outco. In this world, beasts dominated combat through physical superiority exceeding anything a human forge could create. Armors were dead weight limiting mobility without providing significant protection against claws and fangs of creatures, especially those of Silver or Gold rank.
Wearing armor against a Gold-rank beast was like wearing paper against a sword. It gave false confidence without actual protection. Worse, it sotis slowed you down.
Beasts were much harder than most human constructions. Their scales, their hides, their spiritual reinforcent made conventional weapons nearly useless beyond Bronze rank.
That was why serious tars wore thick but flexible clothing optimized for movent rather than protection. Speed and positioning mattered. Armor didn't.
Selphira used a spear, that was true, but it wasn't like Ren's initiative, not a conventionally forged weapon.
It was a manifestation of her power, of her control over elental ice.
And although she maintained that physical spear stored within one of her beast's storage space, since it was an object she'd been injecting mana into for years until the material had completely saturated and beco a natural extension of her will, that was an exception proving the rule.
The spear was elental tool first and physical object second, power derived from the tar wielding it rather than from so third party who had forged it.
That's how it was for all serious tars. Beasts were their primary weapons and armor, and any physical implents were tertiary at best.
Orion finished verifying his beasts had strong bonds and energy flowing without obstructions.
Two beasts currently… Gold rank.
They weren't natural beasts anymore. Not entirely... The alterations were subtle, maybe 5-10% deviation from baseline, but that deviation made them significantly more compatible with the technology he was about to use.
Before leaving the preparation area completely, Orion took a mont to hide his most important papers and books.
They were docunts he'd obtained from families of his faction that had been closer to original Goldcrests and to Yino's leadership during years back when Yino still operated with complete autonomy.
Those groups had obtained significant information and corrupt technology that most of today's rebel faction didn't even know existed, knowledge jealously guarded by those who'd discovered it first.
So were copies, so were originals that had been smuggled out during Yino's collapse... So were notes compiled from interviews with survivors who'd worked directly with the Brain during its operational period.
Each one represented years of research. Decades, in so cases. Knowledge that couldn't be replaced if lost.
He placed them in locations throughout the compound that only he knew.
It was thanks to those docunts that Orion had been able to attempt so of his most risky experintations.
The corruption Jin had used during his confrontation with Ren, for example, had been direct developnt of techniques described in texts coming from Yino's research and the corrupt cores. Not simply random corrupt energy but controlled application of specific principles.
Jin's corruption had operated at maybe 30% efficiency. Weak... But functional enough to demonstrate the concept.
With more ti, more refinent, more test subjects to work with, Orion could have pushed that to 60-70% efficiency in power buff without the secondary effects. Maybe higher. The theoretical ceiling was perhaps 100% before the corruption beca too dense for human consciousness to maintain control.
And other experints he'd conducted over the years had taught him fundantal things about how mana and corruption interacted.
He'd learned the limits of what the human body could tolerate. Had discovered breaking points where transformation beca irreversible. Had mapped territories of knowledge remaining completely unexplored by conventional researchers operating under ethical restrictions.
All volunteers, technically, though "volunteer" beca questionable concept when you were offering power to desperate people with nothing to lose.
But despite all that, he remained convinced of sothing that seed to contradict his research direction: crystals used by oneself remained superior in terms of stability and reliability.
Corrupt technology provided power and capabilities that normal cultivation would take years to reach, but it ca with costs not always apparent until it was too late to reverse the damage.
Maybe it was part of what others might call his "Yano pride"... that deep conviction that his city's purist culture had intrinsic value that shouldn't be completely discarded in favor of tempting shortcuts.
Yano had lasted centuries.
There had to be wisdom in there… Wisdom that shouldn't be thrown away just because sothing faster existed.
It was precisely why he'd been opportunist rather than fully allying with the more radical anti-Yano faction. He didn't hate his city or the culture that had ford who he was.
He just wanted to improve them "his way", evolve traditions rather than destroy them and replace them with foreign systems that hadn't been properly tested.
Reform, not revolution. Though the distinction was admittedly subtle when you were currently holding another city's military commander hostage in pursuit of more ancient technology.
Don't buy next one too fast pls, need to leave for a small urgency, will be back soon and finish translation...
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