Once the doctor had left, Hunter returned everything to his storage ring and opened the package that the doctor had left behind. Inside the package was a gooey ointment, a bottle of pills, and a bottle of liquid. He read through the instructions and gave Jaspen his first dose of the treatment.

  It wasn’t easy. Jaspen’s bruises required ointment, which someone had to rub in. The pill acted as both a painkiller and an anti-inflammatory, which had some anti-biotic properties as well. There was a weak etheric field around the pill, kind of like an aura.

  He studied it for a moment before remembering who the pill was for.

  Once Hunter applied the treatment and Jaspen fell asleep, Hunter took some more time to study his own pill. He removed it from the small, transparent container. As soon as it was out, there was no mistaking the strong etheric field that the pill emitted. It was at least twice as strong as the pill he had given to Jaspen.

  He wouldn’t call it an aura, as auras felt more living and dynamic. This was something else. It was static, unmoving. It was undoubtedly etheric, as it had all the hallmarks of an etheric charge. But there were subtleties at play here which were out of reach. It was simultaneously familiar, and yet different from anything he’d encountered before. The pill emitted the field, yet the field seemed to contain the pill.

  How strange, he thought. The amount of times he’d stumbled across mysterious fields, auras, and etheric effects had desensitized him to his own ignorance. He didn’t despair, instead he resolved himself to figuring it out, someday.

  Since he was slightly ahead of his scavenging quota, he planned on taking the next day off in order to practice cycling his etherium with the help of the pill. He’d make a show of going down to the mines, as it would be easier to find a space to himself. If all went well, he would make a breakthrough. If not, he’d have to make do without one. Either way, he’d take all the help he could get to prepare him for the next evening’s festivities.

  Hunter’s thoughts didn’t settle enough for him to find any sleep. Instead of lamenting the interruption to his rest, he explored his thoughts.

  As far as slave labour went, Hunter figured that this place could be far worse. From what he’d been able to piece together, the Peackeepers had come to this world with some sort of superweapon. It caused an unfathomable amount of brittle, rock-like matter to manifest over a vast distance. Their mining mostly involved picking through newly formed rock. They extracted the bodies of suffocated Seedhans and looted any valuables they found.

  It was difficult to wrap his mind around the fact that the Peacekeepers would use such a device against this world’s population. He’d seen their heartlessness up close. He added it to the list of reasons that they deserved to be eradicated.

  The weapon didn’t target the entire world, however. Only patches of it. Apparently, the Peacekeepers had waged a war against the remaining cities, bombarding most of them from a high altitude. Peacekeepers stormed the rest on foot. Given the size of the fleet which had attacked Skyhold, it wasn’t hard to believe that they had the manpower for that kind of operation.

  Thinking of Skyhold, Hunter shuddered to contemplate what would have happened if the Peackeepers had activated the same weapon over the skies of the budding Oberon colony. And it begged the question, if the Peacekeepers were capable of such destruction, why had June been able to cut through half of their fleet with ease? How had the Oberon fleet been able to hold them off as long as they had?

  More questions he didn’t have the means of answering yet.

  Following the activation of the superweapon, the genocidal maniacs pillaged the planet. They used slave labour from any resisting worlds in the sector to help them find scraps. Some worlds, he assumed, probably couldn’t resist at all.

  And yet, something bugged him about what he’d seen. Something about how he and the other slaves were being treated wasn’t quite sitting right with him. It felt like he was missing something obvious.

  Yet clarity eluded him. But he could start connecting the dots.

  The Peacekeepers knew about Os, and the rest of the ‘merchants’ who had set up at the camp’s market. The lack of direct intervention meant that the bastards were at least somewhat supportive of it. They wanted people to earn the opportunity to strengthen themselves. They wanted something like a makeshift economy to form amongst its slaves.

  But, Hunter wondered, to what end?

  Clearly, they had the power to subjugate the slaves outright, forcing them to work until they dropped dead. So why waste resources? Why proliferate those resources? The doctor said the Peacekeepers distribute currency usable for more direct deals.

  It made little sense to him. Why make deals with slaves? Not that he was complaining, of course. He preferred this to being worked to death.

  The only clue he had was the loyalists. His only clue was the loyalists who had been given advantages for kissing Peacekeeper ass.

  The scavenging camps closer to the cities, from what he could tell, were more organized than the mining camps. Most of the loyalists would find their way transferred to one of those. At least, that’s what he’d heard.

  Hunter pulled out something from his storage ring that he didn’t dare to sell.

  A small book. The pages were burned dirtied. Many of them were missing. But when he first opened it, the incomprehensible scribbles slowly resolved themselves into words he understood.

  As soon as that happened, he had transferred the book into his storage ring. He had listened to other slaves and gone over everything their loyalist and Peacekeeper supervisors had told them. Reading what he could from the book, he tried to find clues to a puzzle that he couldn’t be sure was even there.

  No one expected the slaves to understand anything they found in the ruins of this world. He considered sharing the book with Jaspen, but if what he suspected was true, then he didn’t want to risk Jaspen being targeted again. So he chose another among their number, a formation apprentice by the name of Gera. When Gera confirmed he could understand them, he warned Gera, and the rest of their people, not to give any sign that they could read the Seedhan artifacts.

  So Hunter confirmed his hypothesis, but he didn’t know what it meant about the bigger picture.

  The rest of the slaves from other worlds would have been given access to a translation matrix very early in their lives. Many of the languages it would need to account for were floating around their homes. Even if their part of the universe was commonly considered the outer fringe, many cultures had existed in the sector for at least decades. Some had probably existed for centuries. June’s account indicated that while space travel was infrequent, it happened often enough for Hunter to assume the children’s translation matrices had been exposed to multiple languages from various worlds.

  So, why couldn’t they understand the Seedhan language? The only reason Hunter could think of was that the Seedhans must have been socially isolated from the rest of the universe. If they were a self-sufficient people who had no reason to trade with others beyond their sky, and they were far enough away from most of the other known peoples in the outer fringe, then there would be no reason for anyone to waste resources in seeking them out.

  Any translation matrices that the slaves would have been given or exposed to when they were children would have lost its efficacy after a while. There was no longer a translation matrix present in these slaves’ auras, etheric fields, or whatever strange esoteric principle the matrix used to do its work. Many of may not have ever encountered such a device before.

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  However, June and his disciples exposed Hunter and the rest of the Skyhold delegation to a translation matrix during their first contact. That had been relatively recently. A matter of months.

  The camp exposed him to many languages. This likely updated his linguistic matrix to include those of most habitable worlds in the sector, and perhaps even some from closer to the core worlds Aruon mentioned. The matrix was actively translating Seedhan language samples from the books he’d found, even now. If the matrix stopped working for whatever reason during his stay in Seedha—the length of which he would vow every morning to himself would be temporary—the translation was already done.

  Hunter wanted to piece together who the Seedhans were. Maybe that would shed some light on the Peacekeepers’ motives. There must be more to it than simple resource extraction.

  If it was a matter of a scavenging hunt for meager trinkets, creating the infrastructure to support their slaves wouldn’t be necessary. No, the Peackeepers were here for the long haul, and they wanted to foster the most ambitious amongst the slaves. They wanted to reward those who showed loyalty, and help strengthen those who showed the drive to improve themselves.

  The motive behind the latter fact seemed obvious. They were recruiting. They were bolstering their numbers. After losing an entire fleet, Hunter could only guess that they needed manpower. That thought triggered something in him. A gut feeling. Squinting his eyes, he let the train of thought continue, paying more attention to the feeling he was getting.

  So the Peacekeepers were recruiting. They needed manpower. And Hunter suspected they were searching for something. They eradicated the Seedhans—for what? To ensure that no one would impede their looting of the world?

  What could be so important that it justified the erasure of an entire population?

  Hunter sat in thought for a while more, but he still couldn’t quite figure out what his mind was trying to tell him. But he knew it was only a matter of time before he figured it out.

  He got a few hours of sleep. He woke, treated Jaspen, and then joined the queue of withered people heading for twelve hours of torment in the Seedhan heat. But instead of finding a spot to work, he searched for the small space he’d uncovered the previous day. It was out of the way of most people’s efforts, and it gave Hunter some privacy to do what he needed to do. The hole to the small space he’d uncovered was nestled flush against the sheer face of a small hill. Not only was it covered in shadow, but it was easy enough to move some rocks across the entrance to hide it from distant eyes. Anyone who neared it would make enough noise to alert Hunter to their presence. By the time they dropped inside, he’d be ready for them.

  He pulled out a blanket from his storage ring and folded it up a few times, placing it on the ground flush against the wall. Sitting on the folded blanket with his back against the wall, he took out the most significant advantage he’d claimed so far, the one and only drawstone in his possession.

  As soon as he felt the drawstone in his hand, he could feel the etherium flowing through him. He took some time to tune in and let his focus strengthen into something akin to a fine point. He traced out the etherium as it travelled along his channels. Then began the purposeful expanding and contracting his channels, manipulating the flow of etherium as much as he could. After an hour, he could completely influence how the etherium flowed through him. Every cycle would strengthen the attractive force of the channels the etherium flowed through. It was kind of like building a habit. Soon, the etherium flowed along his chosen route without his conscious intervention. And as long as he could hold this focus, it would continue to do so for a small while after he finished his session.

  He’d found that for the short time that the etherium cycled on its own, he would be stronger, more alert, and would have a seemingly endless supply of endurance. The more etherium he held and cycled, the more his body’s continuous self-optimization intensified the effect.

  With great care, he extracted the pill from his storage ring. He made sure he paid attention to every sensation within his body. His attention was on the entire space that his body took up, and it felt like he was simultaneously aware of every inch. It was harder for his concentration to waver while he was in this state, but it could still happen if he wasn’t careful.

  Deep breaths, he said to himself. In and out.

  The breaths moved with the bleeding edge of the moment.

  He swallowed the pill, and to his surprise, it was a pill no longer. Like a warm stream of milk, the pill dissolved. And then, like a grenade, the etherium exploded through his body.

  His channels were in overdrive. An amount of etherium unlike anything he had ever felt was coursing through him. He had no time to think, no time to analyze. He pushed the etherium through his channels as best he could. The sheer amount of it, the feeling of its charge, was like handling fire with his bare hands. Everything burned. He had never felt etherium like this before. It had never felt so tactile and physical the way it did as it entered his etheric channels.

  He cycled the etherium again and again. It took all of his concentration, every ounce of his will, to pull the etherium through him as fast as he could. He cycled until he lost all awareness of where he was, of who he was. Until there was no future or past. Just the cycle. Just the moment. He’d penetrating into a realm of focus he’d never yet achieved, here on what felt like the precipice of existence. All he knew was the movement of etherium, the expansion and contraction of his channels, and the growth of new ones.

  And the growth was wild, accelerated beyond anything he could have imagined. Too fast, like pure chaos.

  But the detailed, careful work he’d done until now had paid off. For over a week, he’d painstakingly traced, retraced, flexed, and contracted etheric channels for hours daily. Because of his hard work, all he had to do was get the etherium to the path ways he desired for them to flow along, and then continue to ensure that it continued to cycle along that route. There were now over a dozen extra channels branching off of his main pathway, and it would take some time to ensure that the new growths were ignored.

  He continued to cultivate, refusing to let his focus waver. The pain and the sense of overwhelm became nothing more than information. And he could see that the pain was not in vain. The information he’d gained from the Tara Sovereign sect, combined with his father’s journals, had given him the information he needed to ensure that he had room to accommodate the fresh growth. Just because those new channels didn’t appear useful now, didn’t mean that they wouldn’t be useful later.

  Finally, the energy relented. Where there had been pain and burning discomfort, there was now a feeling of being soothed. The etherium which had raged through him like a river now flowed as a sedate stream. Still, new pathways grew through him, but his system was calm enough that he had some control over how they formed. Although he didn’t know what to do with them yet, the rational side of him decided to allow the etherium to do what it wanted to. He, of all people, knew etherium only appeared volatile on the surface. Beneath the surface, it became clear that it had a will of its own.

  Perhaps, maybe, if his intuition was correct, this could pay off. But if he was wrong, he might sacrifice the strength of his foundation over nothing but a whim.

  That being said, he’d taken crazier bets in his life.

  Having made that choice, Hunter felt his mind relax. He felt a weight lift from his shoulders, a weight he hadn’t realized he was carrying.

  He let his mind wander. 10 minutes went by. 15, 20, 30. After an hour, he checked on his inner state. To his wonder, the stream within his system didn’t relent.

  Joy welled up within him.

  He’d done it.

  After Inducing Epiphase, came Uncesasing Temperance. Now his etherium would flow on its own, he would have a constant low-level draw of etherium. The effect of etherium constantly moving through his body was like the etheric-vacuum effect the drawstone would create in the body. The difference was that now, the amount of etherium coming in would be more than the amount going out. As more etherium bled away from his channels, and that amount would only increase as more etherium cycled. The etherium which would saturate his body should have a more beneficial effect on his bones, organs, and muscle tissue. However, Hunter would need to keep constant track of the amount of etherium within him so that his channels didn’t grow in unexpected ways. He would need to shunt etherium out of himself constantly, a skill he’d slowly gained some proficiency in.

  The Foundation Stage manual from the Tara Sovereign sect mentioned that this skill would be the foundation of the first skills he may learn in the Elemental stage. He eagerly anticipated the ability to project etherium externally, particularly after witnessing June’s feat of disabling half a space fleet with only a sword.

  Hunter wished he had a way to measure his affinity. He’d love to see Aera reaction to seeing the number jump once again. And if he was right, then the rate that his affinity would rise from this point on would only increase. He wondered if it would find a natural cap once he reached the threshold between Foundation Establishment and Elemental Initiate, but for now he had no way to find out.

  The most important thing was that he knew this would give him the edge he needed to win his next fight. He did his best to forget about how wild his channels had grown, compared to how clean and organized he’d made them over the last few months. He wished he had a mentor to walk him through the process, instead of having to piece things together on his own. Despite using the manual and his father’s journals, the path proved more challenging in practice than he initially imagined. True to form, practical experience proved more valuable than theoretical knowledge.

  Content with his progress for the day, Hunter marched his way back to the camp. His first stop was the tent. He was pleased that the colour had returned to his bed-ridden friend’s skin. Not only that, but Jaspen could sit up without any help. The painkillers made it easier for him to breathe. Satisfied the treatment was working, Hunter left the tent and returned to the doctor’s cabin. Hopefully, whatever the doctor gave him would speed up Jaspen’s recovery even more.