Chương 610: Limitless Path Chapter Six Hundred Twenty-Nine

"So," Kal said with a clap, trying to get them refocused.

"Now that we've established our credentials, let's get to the heart of the matter."

"Right, I'm sure we're all busy," said Thomas before giving Mark a glare. Maybe there was a bit of a dig in that simple statement?

"Fine, fine, I was caught," Mark admitted, some subtext still flying back and forth.

"I had hoped that I could use a bit of intimidation to settle this, but that's clearly not the case."

"It was more than a bit of intimidation," Beth threw out, getting a sour look from Mark but a nod from the others.

"I hope you don't feel like the CRA is going to take you threatening and attacking a Gold Emblem on official business lightly," Arianna said, her words adding a decided chill to the air in the room.

"You know we value our member safety and integrity seriously. An attack on a Gold Emblem, in particular, is an attack on the Association itself. The penalties and fines will be ruinous."

"The company has plenty of resources," Mark said with a shrug, far too dismissive of something so serious, in Beth's opinion.

"We're more interested in protecting our business interests than anything else. A mere fine won't hinder our operations."

"Trust me when I tell you it will be more than a 'mere fine,'" Arianna said coldly.

"Your company is already skating on some thin ice with its recent actions; attacking a Gold Emblem investigating that already illegal and, frankly, embarrassing activity is not at all a good look. The fine is going to be very heavy, and you, and I mean you personally, are in a lot of trouble."

"Please," Mark said, rolling his eyes.

"Do you know who our backers are? A little fight like this isn't anything to worry about."

"I don't care who your backers are," Beth interjected.

"Maybe we could step outside and keep going? I'd love to see how cocky you are as I smash you into paste while your backers are thousands of light years away."

"That won't be necessary," Arianna said, giving Beth a slight glare for her interruption, but Beth simply shrugged it off.

"I really don't know why they hired you," Thomas said then.

"You already had a big head, you ingrate, and now you're going around attacking CRA members on official business? Just because they're weaker than you? Do you know that this is something that can and will lead to censure?"

"We don't rely on the CRA, anyway," said Mark, still acting dismissive, even if it looked to Beth like he was starting to sweat a bit.

"I'm not talking about them," Thomas said.

"We take a dim view on such activities," Kal added, having been silent for a time.

"You are quite lucky that Argand doesn't fall under our jurisdiction. The most I can do now is report your interference in CRA business and your attack on one of their members carrying out a lawful investigation." He turned to Beth and asked, "Tell me, young Enforcer, did you present any identification to Mark before he attacked you? Even verbal identification of your position and role?"

"I did, in fact, not only explain who I was, both to Manager Kim and to Mark, but I showed them both my Emblem and Mark scanned it. He scanned it in Manager Kim's presence, so there are witnesses to him doing so," Beth replied lazily, leaning back and spreading her arms across the backrest of the chair.

"After they basically 'caught' me when I was snooping around, I was taken to Manager Kim. At that point, and going forward, I identified myself more than once, that I was working for the CRA on a mission. After multiple times identifying myself, and showing my Emblem and having it verified, that's when Mark decided it was a good idea to attack me."

"This is not going to go well for you, Mark," Kal said, putting a particular emphasis on his name.

"The White Dove Republic has a very cordial relationship with the CRA and we take a very dim view of any attack on them. Fines and sanctions are just going to be the very start of the problems that your little operation will face."

"Little operation! We have the backing of-" Mark started, ranting a little, before making a slight choking sound and turning an interesting shade of red.

"You damned fool!" Thomas snapped.

"You signed a Full Silence Contract with total indemnity? I can't think of anything stupider for a fucking Ascended to do."

"It was worth it," Mark huffed, having recovered from whatever had just happened and returning to a slightly more normal shade.

"You have no idea how long I've been stuck. Their offer was more than competitive."

"Competitive and with enough backing to make you lose your damned mind," Thomas snorted.

"Maybe it's time for that ego of yours to get deflated just a little bit. Arianna, hit him with it."

"Ten orichalcum coins and five years labor," Arianna said.

"Ten?!" Mark cried out.

"That's far beyond the regular fine. Blood Stars, Arianna, that's beyond the amount fined for a major company killing a CRA member! And five years of labor! I can't afford that. The company will absolutely dispute this. There's no way they can stand for this."

"I think you'll find the company cares less about you than you might think," Thomas said, slight disgust in his voice as he leaned back in his chair.

"Anyone that would have you sign such a lopsided contract and would have such powerful backers wouldn't care about a low rebirth Ascended like you. They'll sell you out without a second thought and happily continue their business without even bothering to mark you as anything more than a temporary loss." Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"Please! Ascended aren't so common or easy to recruit that they would just throw me away like that without a thought," Mark said with some zeal.

"The five years of labor is unacceptable as well. Isn't there anything else you can do at this point? I cannot afford to lose that time, nor can the company-""I don't care," Arianna said, interrupting his tirade.

"You should have actually used your brain first if you didn't want to suffer the consequences. Ascended like you are what give people and places bad names, included our cadre of rebirths. You need to understand that what you did is wrong and be punished. I don't care if you're getting old and haven't stumbled on some fix for that; you don't want to do hard time, don't attack our members. There's no ifs, ands, or butts about this."

"And do not think you are getting off so lightly," Kal said, having been observing for a time.

"We will be sanctioning the Prime Explorers and instituting a fine of no less than four orichalcum coins. I dare say, you're going to be a loss leader for the entire company, likely for the foreseeable future."

"Fourteen orichalcum," Mark muttered.

"I will be lodging my own complaints. The way this operation was handled was outside normal protocols-""You don't know CRA protocols," Arianna said, cutting off that tirade right away.

"Everything that was done by our members was well within our rights and standard procedures. I would be more inclined to listen to your bumbling whining if one of our members had stepped out of line and attacked you or your employees without provocation or identifying themselves. That is territory where we could argue the viability of your claims. Unless you want to contest that Beth identified herself clearly and plainly, including showing her badge?"

"No. No, I don't," Mark said, deflating.

"We'll protest, but we'll do it the proper way."

"You have seven days to arrange everything," Arianna said coldly.

"If you try to flee, a priority bounty will be placed on your head, available for any Platinum or Diamond Emblem to act on. You will also be expelled and banned from the Association and its related facilities for life. Failure of you or the company to pay the full fine promptly will result in consequences ranging from additional fines to additional labor to further restrictions and revocations. Do not test us on this. It will not end well."

"Fine. We'll pay and I will turn myself in for service before a week has passed," Mark said, entirely depressed at that point as it sank in.

"Is there more or can I began arranging everything?"

"I would read you the same," Kal said, "but I believe you understand. I expect the payment within the same seven day period. Leave us." Kal hadn't really been serious before that, but now he was, and Beth could feel just how strong he was. He was clearly much more powerful than anyone else in the room, even her, and the weight of his power was highly oppressive.

Beth could resist it fairly well, given the strength and depth of her core powers, but all three of the others displayed some level of discomfort, with Mark displaying the most. It also helped that Kal was touching on his Ideal; Beth could feel it in his mana signature and the power he radiated. He hadn't completed it yet, it was still only partially finished, but he had definitely made much more progress than many Ascended had towards that point.

Beth estimated that, if he could get enough time, he would step into the ranks of Exalted, which was not always true. Many Ascended could be given a million years, or even a billion years, and they would still never even touch upon the core of their Ideal, let alone partially finish it. Mark stood and left the room, Arianna using some kind of skill or spell before he left, likely something to help her track him to really make sure he didn't run.

After that, Thomas and Kal made a bit of polite small talk before leaving themselves, Kal explaining he had a lot of things to do in overseeing the planet. Arianna thanked both of them profusely before sitting back down with Beth, ready to go over some of the operation, at least as it pertained to what happened on their world. Argand was not really so much of a concern for her; not her circus, not her monkeys.

"I have an extensive report I'm working on," Beth said, leaning forward as she transmitted some of the documents she had, uh, borrowed from the company alongside some things she had written up herself.

"The biggest concern, I would say, is just how extensive their operations are. That, and the fact that their funding moves through some mysterious channels."

"These documents are enough for me," Arianna demurred.

"This is a mission right from Arbitus; I don't want to interfere in their investigations. I just need enough to know how to handle Mark and any other situations that arise related to the company here."

"Should've just let me clean his clock," Beth said with a sigh, sitting back on her chair again.

"It would have been too dangerous," Arianna said.

"We can't risk that kind of fight spiraling out of control on a heavily populated world. We need to make sure that the regular citizens, as well as the lower-rebirth Wayfarers, are kept safe from that kind of thing. You have your Ideal already, and congratulations on that, by the way. That makes your attacks far more potent than anyone else below Ascended, anyone that isn't at least a Sage with a weapon, that is. Then, you were fighting against an Ascended, which is a greater level of destruction."

"What's the big deal with that, anyway?" Beth asked.

"I had always thought that Ascended was so big just because it was such a big range. Is there something else to it?"

"It's not widely discussed, but there's two critical factors," Arianna said.

"For you, in Enlightened, one of the biggest benefits is that your Mana Physique is fully integrated with your body. You will be getting a bit stronger each rebirth, and your total mana capacity will increase a decent bit, sometimes quite a lot, depending on several factors.

"In Ascended, your mana capacity still increases a bit each rebirth, but there are two other factors at play, like I said. The first is that you start to increase the purity of your mana. Essentially, for a basic explanation, it's like your mana is mist or vapor right now. When you get to Ascended, that mist starts to condense, with it fully condensing at rebirth fifty into pure liquid.

It's the other reason why Exalted can wipe the floor with everyone; their mana density and purity is much higher than anyone below Exalted. Even between rebirth forty-nine and rebirth fifty, there's a big difference, not to mention someone at rebirth fifty now having their Ideal."

"Right, that's pretty easy to understand," Beth said.

"Though, I will say, it didn't really feel all that different, duking it out with Mark versus others I've fought before."

"Yes, that's where the second part comes in," Arianna said.

"Not only do Ascended have purer mana, but they also can express more of that mana in skills. When you use a skill, you use, let's just say, a hundred mana to use a skill. It's not that precise, but this is just for an example."

"Right, I gotcha," Beth nodded.

"So, you use a hundred mana, and you cast a skill. When you become an Ascended, you still use a hundred mana and cast that skill, but now your mana is denser, so it's more like you used a hundred and twenty, or even a hundred and fifty mana to cast the skill. So, you have the bigger oomph for the same price," Arianna explained.

"That's the easier part to understand. What many don't know is that you can take the same skill, at the same rank, and use up to twice the mana to get double or more the effect. It's not just twice what you'd normally use, it's up to twice what the maximum is, you understand?"

"Oh, wow, that's a lot of extra power," said Beth.

"Right, though the extra mana part is both hard to do and really, really straining. Even people with more than forty rebirths can't just fire off a thousand skill uses in a row while overloading the skill. It's too much strain on that person's mind and soul to do it.

If someone does it too much in rapid succession, they start to become rapidly exhausted, suffer from nausea and headaches, start to have their consciousness fade, and will pass out, sometimes with their mana interrupted, meaning even secondary skills that apply protection or buffing will fail. It's a very risky thing to do overall so I doubt Mark made use of it, but you need to be careful when you're fighting Ascended.

The one-two combo of denser mana and overloading skills is why their far more respected than if they were just an Enlightened with a couple more rebirths," Arianna said.

"Okay, good information," Beth said, digesting the warning.

"Didn't realize that hitting rebirth twenty was such a big boost."

"It's a good bit of extra power, but that doesn't mean you should rush there," Arianna admonished lightly.

"Remember the lesson of Mana Physiques."

"People who rush rebirths have trouble building their Mana Physique because the haste caused all kinds of problems in their development," Beth said, nodding in agreement.