Chương 582: Limitless Path Chapter Six Hundred Four

"People can certainly be monsters," Beth said with a nod.

"Well, in many ways, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't ever trust anyone," Abigail said.

"I think I've talked long enough, considering I've covered all the basics and it's better that you experience some things yourself. Just be careful, even with your strength, about rushing to fight the Depths as soon as you're Ascended. I've seen enough young, eager, powerful Ascended never return to know that it's a dangerous proposition for anyone."

"Thanks, Abigail," Beth said, the Ascended nodding to the team before disappearing back into the reliquary.

"Where to?" Blood asked, not having anywhere set as they had been taking care of the medallion.

"Nearest teleporter," Beth said immediately.

"We need to report back to Fallon about what we found and, uh, that I happened to take the whole anomaly. Then we've get some training to do."

"Great," Blood said sarcastically, though she did still set course to the teleporter they had used to get close to this location. The flight took just as many hours the second time as the first, even given they had a FTL system on-board. Beth spent the time, at least initially, studying her new medallion, which she eventually made disappear with a flick of her wrist, slightly surprising Sera.

Then again, it was in the item description, so it shouldn't have really been a surprise that she could nestle the item within her soul, comfortably tucked away beside the reliquary. After analyzing the medallion as much as she could, she turned to focus on studying her Ideal and her spatial skills; seeing the portal to the solar system, as well as what the medallion had done when it drew the portal in, had given her a few good idea about how to slightly improve her use of spatial mana.

"You look lost in thought," Sera muttered. Beth was still on her lap, but the bridge was empty, other than Val and Blood. The others had all retreated to their own rooms or other parts of the ship; she could hear a lot of noise coming from the dining area through the open doors and it wasn't a surprise when she checked the internal security system to see several of the team inside drinking, though all the noise was coming from Andrea and Neph.

Neph, it turned out, was both a drinker and a very fun drunk, and it was pretty dangerous getting her together with Andrea, who didn't really have any inhibitions about drinking or what she did when drunk. Luckily, the others kept a bit of a leash on them, with Bjorn and Kris both being in the dining area and drinking much more calmly than Neph and Andrea.

"Just going over what happened when the medallion was finished," Beth explained, leaning back and tilting her head up to kiss Sera firmly on the lips.

"My, that's nice," Sera grumbled after Beth broke it off.

"We should spend some more time together before getting involved in the next thing," Beth murmured.

"I like that idea a lot," Sera replied before tilting her head just a bit and resuming the kiss. When the two eventually broke off again, Beth explained, "I was thinking about how the medallion pulled the portal in and changed it. There was a lot of manipulation of space involved in what happened and I've been thinking about how I can apply that to my skills and Ideal."

"Improving an Ideal is hard," Sera said.

"At least, from what my oh-so-favorite uncle has said on it, which isn't much, is that trying to get an Ideal to produce more power for the same energy use is very difficult. An Ideal already represents a very deep understanding of something, so pushing it any further is hard. It's not like a Presence, where the mechanics of it, from what I understand, can be pushed a lot."

"Not sure I hundred percent follow," Beth said, gently nuzzling against Sera's neck as she continued.

"It's a little difficult to explain properly, but with your Presence, you've been able to increase the power and decrease the stamina consumption by practicing with it. I'm talking about you, Beth, specifically when I say that," Sera said.

"I use a Presence as an example as there's not a whole lot of a higher concept there to push; you're getting better at releasing the power of the ability and managing it; it's the pure mechanics of using it."

"Ah, I understand," Beth said, coming up for air for a moment.

"With an Ideal, it's almost purely conceptual; there's very little to do to improve the mechanics of using it, though not nothing. Instead, I have to understand the concepts behind it, which I already understand quite well, to really improve its strength by any significant amount."

"That's right," Sera said, kissing Beth's temple.

"You can get better at the mechanics of using an Ideal and manipulating it, but that's a small improvement that takes a long time. You need to understand better to make it stronger, which would mean you need to understand space, spatial obliteration, and purging fire to draw more power out of your Ideal."

"None of that sounds or would be easy," Beth said with a sigh.

"Honestly, it's kind of ludicrous that you're already thinking about improving your Ideal," Sera said with a snort.

"A lot of Exalted don't work on refining their Ideal for centuries after moving past rebirth fifty; meanwhile, you're not even rebirth twenty yet and you're already working on improving yours." The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"It's just because I'm so good with spatial mana," Beth said with a shrug, not intending it to be a brag.

"I like working with it, and I get inspired a lot by a lot of different things to do more with it."

"Just be careful not to stretch yourself too thin," Sera said quietly before locking her lips firmly on Beth's. The rest of the flight passed by in no time, and this was where the first real test happened, with Beth wanting to store the cruiser in the medallion. She knew that she would eventually be able to store the cruiser, and things of similar size and complexity, in the reliquary, which would be far more convenient, but the medallion would at least let them move large objects around with some level of ease.

The problem was how they were going to do it, and Beth eventually came up with the strategy of having them go to a moon in the system they were currently in. She then had Blood fly the ship just a few dozen feet above the ground through the portal, which she had opened right above the surface of one of the moons of the third planet from the sun in her personal system.

Blood then exited the ship, setting it to do the standard hover they normally had it doing on Earth that kept it in a tracking orbit around the planet, and then Blood hopped back out of the portal. The cruiser was more than capable of defending itself from almost any threat in the system, and Beth wasn't really that worried about something like the wurm making its way over to the third planet, so leaving the cruiser there should be more than fine.

Once Blood was back on their side, she closed the portal, finding it sank back into the medallion totally fine, which meant they could, at the very least, move large objects and masses into the solar system and it didn't disturb the medallion's function in any way. The group was powerful enough at this point that getting from a moon to a planet wasn't much issue, so much so that Beth didn't bother with deploying the airship, which she had now stored in the reliquary and not her necklace.

It was a testament to her integration with the Boundless item that she could store the airship, even folded up, given the amount of mana present and its complexity, but she could barely manage it. That meant the cruiser was still at least a year or two off, possibly longer, but the medallion obviated the need to try to rush things on that front.

The group used their teleportation and movement abilities to move from the moon they were on to the planet in just a couple dozen minutes, much faster than the airship could do it, limited as it was to only a couple times the speed of sound, even without an atmosphere pushing back against it. The team was unchallenged entering atmosphere, not entirely unusual, though they were challenged when entering the nearby city, but their CRA Emblems got them through security with barely even a glance, once presented.

They teleported to the intermediary location they used before teleporting to Zane and Fallon's home, which Beth knew was somewhere in one of the spiral arms of the galaxy, though not where exactly. It would be strange for someone so strong to be out here, as power often concentrated at the center of a galaxy, but Zane and Fallon were so far beyond anyone else in the galaxy, with such different concerns and metrics, that them being in the middle of nowhere wasn't all that unusual.

They were met at the teleportation pad by a worker that was going to take them to Fallon, but the Manumitted clearly could monitor the teleporters on the stats, as he showed up immediately to talk to them.

"Well? How was it? What was it?" Fallon asked eagerly.

"Let's go somewhere we can sit and talk," Beth suggested.

"Yes, yes, of course. Right this way," Fallon said, leading them to a familiar lounge and waiting for them to get something to drink before starting again.

"So, how was it? What was the anomaly, exactly?"

"I wrote up a report on the way back, though it's just the highlights," Beth said with a very slight sigh.

"Report writing is not my favorite part of the job, I will say."

"That's why I just hire someone to do it," Fallon said with an absentminded shrug, clearly reading the document, though it only took him a few moments to get through the whole thing.

"Fascinating. And, it absorbed the portal? The readings from your instruments are quite interesting, even if they are a little basic. I wonder why they gems were left in the state they were in? Perhaps they couldn't be utilized by the people that made them due to lack of mana and so were left to charge but the original producers never returned?

I have seen many such scenarios in my time walking the Path, unfortunately, and this would just be one more case of large ambitions being cut short and then the Path re-purposing such things for the benefit of those willing to push themselves. Do you still have the wurm corpse, by happenstance?"

"Sorry, the others already got to work on it, unless there was just a part in particular you wanted," Beth said with a slight, apologetic smile.

"They Empyreans already broke it down into parts and even tanned the hide and rendered the blood and fat and such into workable components. I guess, one other benefit of having a bunch of bored peak-Ascended that are good at crafting stuck with you twenty-four/seven."

"I was interested in its heart, if you happen to still have that without having done anything with it," Fallon said.

"Let me look," Beth said before one of the Empyreans suddenly popped out.

"Sir Fallon, here is the heart," Belladonna said, presenting him the heart.

"Ah, yes, you were missing some time ago, Belladonna. Well, no surprise an Ancient Kresnik would desire such a fine heart; I don't have a pressing need, if it would benefit you…" said Fallon.

"No, no, good sir. Please, take it," Belladonna said, slightly overwhelmed.

"Ahem," Beth said, interrupting the two of them.

"While this is great, it is, technically, my heart, just so we're clear here."

"Yes, right," Belladonna said, the older kresnik having the good sense to look a bit embarrassed.

"What would you like for it, my dear," Fallon asked, hovering the heart in front of him and inspecting it.

"I don't know, shoot me a price," Beth replied, getting a secret thumbs-up from Sera, though she was sure Fallon caught the gesture. It was always best to let the other interested party name a price first in negotiation.

"Well then, how about ten diamonds?" Fallon asked.

"Ten seems pretty good, but that's the heart of a level six hundred, not a level sixty. How about fifteen?" Beth asked after glancing at Sera out of the corner of her eye and seeing the dragon just slightly shake her head no.

"Fifteen is a bit high. I understand you could get a bit in an auction for this, but that route is always risky. What about twelve?" he said.

"You know what, how about twelve and fifty plat and we call it a deal on that?" Beth returned.

"Of course," Fallon said, tossing her the coins before making the heart vanish.

"I'm always looking for hearts or strong, blood-based organs and features of beasts over level five hundred for one of my experiments with runes. If you find any more, consider just selling them to me. Bring me enough, and I'll owe you for it, more than just coins."

"I think we'll have a lot of things that can satisfy that requirement coming up really soon," Beth said with a large grin.

"Good. May I see the medallion itself before we go any further?" Fallon asked.

"Sure, sorry. Should have started with that, maybe," Beth said, summoning the medallion to hand and tossing it to the Manumitted.

'Why was your ancestor so starry-eyed a minute ago?' Beth sent to Val over communicator.

'Even an Exalted is a big deal to those ones trapped in that box you have,' Val replied.

'Seeing a Manumitted, somebody the next step up, in the flesh, is a pretty crazy experience on many fronts, despite how used to it you've gotten. It's not really a wonder that Belladonna shows such respect, especially when said Manumitted expresses interest in something that is very much in her field as well.'

'I see. I didn't really think about it all that much, but I guess it makes sense they are a bit starstruck,' Beth replied idly. Fallon, meanwhile, had started examining the medallion, and he was using quite a lot of mana to do so, so much so that Beth could feel space twist just a little around him, though he seemed to not notice at all.

Well, considering how many rebirths he had done, how strong he was, and how much strange and esoteric knowledge he had, such a display was a small thing of no consequence for someone like him. He hemmed and hawed and muttered to himself for a couple minutes over the object, though Beth could only understand something about force lines and building a better pocket space in a more efficient way, it being clear Fallon was absorbed in the item and just chatting to himself.

His eyes glowed quite strongly at one point, the light being enough to bother even Beth's own enhanced eyes before the light winked out and Fallon tossed the medallion in the air. Not back to her, not yet, but he surrounded it with an array and further analyzed it for a minute before dismissing everything with a wave, the medallion floating back to Beth's hand.