Chương 93: Chapter 2.30: Blindsided

Brutus pressed his eyes shut and took a deep breath. But Favius couldn't help it. He chuckled, and Sirrana followed his example. After they all calmed down again, she took his hand in hers, and they began the oaths.

"I, Sirrana Nyctara Negero, swear myself to the service of Favius Ovinius Loran..." Favius repeated his terms of the oath, and in the end, they nodded at each other.

"So sworn." Brutus cleared his throat.

"Didn't want to interrupt before we got the oath done, but to be honest, a poisoned needle is about the last item I would want to keep in my underwear." Sirrana shrugged.

"We Infiltratoris have a reputation for being dexterous and skilled at fine manipulation." Brutus snorted.

"Well, at least your veterans do. And if everybody tries such poison needle tricks, I can see why your surviving comrades have such a reputation." Sirrana sniffed, and Favius chuckled. Seems I've got myself a personal secret agent by my side. With Sirrana sharing stories from her service while omitting key details, they wandered down the hill, finding themselves soon in the estate again. The evening concluded with a pleasant dinner, and soon Favius fell into bed with a smile.

But while he was still engrossed in the vague memories of a dream, his eyes suddenly shot wide open. Water sloshed against his legs in gentle waves, and his environment was entirely too familiar. Endless alabaster white. Cold water. Favius tensed. What's happening? I haven't even started printing the thousand books. He shifted his eyes to the side and noticed the entity. It nodded at him.

"Greetings. I've merely come to inform you about something."

"Inform me?" Favius repeated, his mind somehow still groggy.

"Indeed. One of your fellow competitors, one..." The entity's voice grew mocking.

"... who has been more diligent about fulfilling his quests and getting rewards, has decided to use one of them on something special."

"Something special? Why are you informing me?" Favius's thoughts raced, and the entity continued.

"Against three out of the top-ten best-performing competitors, a religious movement will start on one of the continents connected to their starting continent." Favius's eyes widened.

"That's possible? We can interfere with others?" The entity sniffed.

"Of course you can. I told you, the rewards can be anything you want. Anything you can think of. Now, if you would let me finish." It continued, and Favius felt a cold gust of wet wind hitting him, almost like foam driven by waves on a North Sea storm. He swallowed and cringed at the unpleasant shock.

"The religion will be universalist, expansionist, and anti-technological." Favius swallowed and considered. Well, I always knew that at some point we were going to interfere with each other's worlds. But dropping ideas into local cultures... He swallowed and considered. Or innovations into an enemy's world. That's an angle I hadn't even considered. Fuck.

"Can you tell me..."

"No." The entity raised a hand, and Favius felt amusement radiating off it.

"To be honest, I delayed informing you of this to ensure the proper comedic timing of you waking up."

"Proper comedic timing?" Favius muttered, his eyes narrowing in utter confusion.

"What?" The white world was gone between one blink and the other, and he lay in his bed. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work! A shadow stood over him.

"Brutus," Favius murmured before swallowing. Fuck. I need to tell him about this. This changes the game if— He raised his head and froze. Another shadow, her shape clearly female, stood three steps from the door, frozen. Her gaze locked onto Brutus.

"Sirrana, what is..." He looked at Brutus. What are both of them doing here? He cleared his throat.

"What by all the gods is going on?" he asked, and both cultivators snapped their heads towards Favius. Brutus laughed, casually swinging his axe onto his shoulder. He looked over at Sirrana and noticed something. She somehow... it's hard to see her. What the... He asked again, this time louder.

"Would anyone mind explaining what the fuck is going on?" Brutus smirked.

"Well, I told Sirrana to try to get another lock of your hair."

"Why would you—" He let out a long-suffering groan, and Brutus chuckled.

"Exactly. I wanted to see her capabilities, and she..." He looked over at her, and Sirrana spoke up for the first time.

"I was eager to answer the challenge." Favius pressed his eyes shut. There's no fucking point to asking either of them if they could have informed me first, I guess.

"Give me a moment," he murmured, sat up, and closed his eyes. With what happened, I've been treating the quest rewards as something to deal with bottlenecks. To use them to accelerate my quest for knowledge and building up this world. But if we can interfere with others... Favius shook his head. No. Even with the cultivator fight I saw today, machine guns are still going to beat magic. And if not that... He smirked.

A nuclear bomb-carrying cultivator suicide bomber seems pretty much impossible to counter if he's got the right insights. He focused and replayed the conversation with the entity in his mind. Religious movement. Three out of ten worlds. So a thirty-three percent chance that I got hit. He grimaced, then grinned. Assuming, of course, I'm even in the top ten. But judging by the story the entity told me about this other guy who got himself entombed by his enemy, I'm surely not doing too badly.

But still, is there anything I need to take care of right now? He straightened his nightgown. No. Even if my world was affected by this religious movement, it'll be decades until it hits me. Still, dropping information on another player's world can be nasty. Especially because memes like this spread faster than tech or genes. He tilted his head to the side. Religion, ideology, movements, social technologies, hell, even stuff like gunpowder. All of this could lead to a lot of upheaval, and I need stability.

He opened his eyes and looked at Brutus before his eyes fell back onto Sirrana. Can't even tell him now with her being a spy and Hesnia's people still here. I need to be extra careful. He clicked his tongue. No. Sabotage is imprecise and costly. I can control and direct self-improvement. Favius took a deep breath and used pneuma to wake himself fully before studying Sirrana.

"We haven't discussed this, but I assume you're not actually a Cultor Mentis." The sides of the woman's mouth twitched.

"Well, Young Master, I was not telling any lies, as I said. I am an Alticultor, and I do possess two mental insights." Favius sniffed.

"Didn't we talk about technical truths earlier?" Sirrana's laughter was surprisingly pleasant.

"Indeed. My insights are evenly split between sensory, shifter, and martial cultivation." Favius raised an eyebrow. Well, that makes sense for an assassin and saboteur. And with her being a shifter, I guess there's probably some sort of known formula for how many insights devoted to being a shifter versus other avenues of cultivation are optimal for getting mutations. Still, sensory cultivation means better senses, and also denying enemy senses.

He looked first at Brutus, who still stood there smiling, assessing, then at Sirrana.

"Would you mind telling me how sensory cultivation actually works?"

"Of course, Young Master," she said. Favius nodded, and nothing happened. He just sat there and looked at Brutus. Well, tomorrow is going to be another round of training, but now with the spring, it's at least not as miserable as in winter. And the workshops will need a visit. Now that everything's settled with Sirrana, Caliga can get her purge on and— His eyes ran through the room. Feels nice being alone in a room with Brutus.

I mean, it's not as necessary as it was in the beginning, but it still makes me feel safe. Sirrana appeared half a step away from him. Favius yelped loudly and jumped up, almost falling against the wall. Brutus burst out in laughter, slapping his thighs. Sirrana leaned over him, grinning.

"What?" Favius gasped, putting a hand on his chest to calm his racing heartbeat.

"How, what, where?" And then he remembered. I asked her to tell me, and she... Brutus began speaking.

"Ah, yes, the first time getting hit by the active stealth of a sensory cultivator." He nodded at her.

"It's a rather subtle and delicate application of aura. Almost all sensory cultivation is. I can control mine rather finely, right?" Favius nodded, listening only with half an ear while his heart was trying to burst out of his chest.

"But a sensory cultivator, they cannot actually make themselves invisible. But if they are aware of their targets..." Brutus shrugged.

"They can move their aura about slowly, ramping up its strength until it affects them without anybody noticing."

"Unless, of course..." He gestured at Sirrana, who smiled.

"... there's another sensory cultivator present. I myself, well, would be able to deceive a Cultor possessing only sensory insights, but a sensory cultivator of Praecultor rank..." She shrugged.

"Might work, might not." Favius slowly chuckled.

"Well, thank you for that demonstration." He paused, realizing something. He looked first at Sirrana, then at Brutus.

"This sneaking into my bedroom," he began, both of the adults smiling innocently.

"This is going to be a regular thing, isn't it?" Both Sirrana and Brutus smirked.

"Well," Brutus murmured, "we both have things to learn from each other."

"Indeed," Sirrana added.

"It's a common saying that steel sharpens steel." Favius sighed and lowered his head.

"I guess this is my life now."