Hector didn't know how to help Darius. He didn't know if it was possible to help Darius. To outward appearances, Dorian had snapped the tail of the Prince Rupert's Drop of spite in the heart of Darius by sharing a secret technique. An act of kindness broke his bitter friend. From a rational perspective, that made no sense. On the other hand, he knew how fragile of a motivation spite could be. Volithur had given up on life once his betrayal backfired. Though he hadn't witnessed the change, Khana traveled a similar trajectory, hanging herself in the barn and leaving instructions for her son to consume her core and corpse as resources to fuel his vengeance.

Now Darius was acting out the sad legacy left by both his parents. The embrace of suicidal nihilism. If there truly was nothing in Darius that wanted more, Hector saw no hope for his friend. All he could do was offer his support and hope for the best. Which was somewhat of a concern. Hector was not good at the emotional stuff. He showed affection by solving problems for those he cared about. Which often took the form of throwing money in their direction.

It might seem like a pure intention from the outside, but Hector knew his payments were an attempt to make inconvenient issues go away. If he cared about Darius, then he would not avoid the unpleasant task of having the hard conversations. Hector did care. So he made the effort.

"Damn it, Hector, I swear I will strike you dead with a chaos bolt if you make one more awkward profession of your brotherly affection."

If nothing else, his efforts had revived Darius' fire.

"Even if I'm not good at this kind of talk, I'm making the effort."

"Congratulations. I can confirm you made an effort at something you are bad at."

"Well, I will stop if you promise not to do anything drastic."

Darius rolled his eyes. "I would not leave Riley without a partner for the dungeon. She may show promise, but she is lacking in levels."

"I guess I will need to slow down Riley's advancements, then."

"She does that well enough herself. Her ambitions are quite tame."

Hector did not mention the fact that she was dating an exiled Stein prince. Back at Tian Tower, Darius dragged Riley away from a computer game she'd become obsessed with to show both of them the Sandwich Technique of the Shaocheth family.

It was an unusual training method. Also a costly one. The body was pumped full of cosmic energy at the same time that the domain shot energy from the outside. Trapped in between, the aura was allowed to collapse. Then, when it could not be squeezed any smaller, they would flare it as powerfully as possible.

Two minutes of practice left Hector completely unable to use his aura.

"Ow, this is terrible, Darius," Riley complained.

Darius looked exhausted by the interaction with the two of them. "You will experience rapid growth in the next few days. I was told that this is all you ever need to do to strengthen your aura. It is most potent when your domain and body are stronger than your aura. Fortunately we already have the domain technique."

The ache in his aura grew steadily until it became the soul equivalent of a bad muscle cramp. The pain was so distracting that Hector almost didn't return to Stronghold Gamma in time for the next patrol. When they set out, he rode on the back of a rover and barely managed to handle his task of converting miasma.

He couldn't sleep that night due to the ever-increasing agony. To pass the time, he cultivated with his domain. The chaos proved more difficult than the miasma now. That made it function better as strength training even if it was much slower as a means of energy replenishment. And Hector needed every bit of energy he could get.

His battered aura passively drew down his reserves the same way his body did when he consumed high quality resources. The hope was that he was growing stronger, but to Hector it felt more like his poor aura was struggling to heal the damage done to it.

The following day he had to inform Colonel Quinn that he was incapable of performing his duties. After much consideration, the colonel sent Purification and Matthias out with the daily patrol instead. No great disaster happened in his absence. Indeed, the soldiers reported that Purification was able to remove the miasma from their wounds better than Hector could.

While the mission was under way, Restoration evaluated him.

"You have no damage to your aura or your soul," she concluded.

Hector, barely able to walk due to how the jagged spikes of pain drove him to constant, gasping distraction, found it hard to believe that nothing was wrong. "Is it just overuse?"

"I can't diagnose aperture strains. Your aura has no holes, tears, or spots of energetic deficiency. There is nothing to restore."

"So I'm just being a whiny bitch," Hector concluded.

The Sage of Restoration sat across from him. "I would not belittle your experience like that. You have a reputation for not respecting your limits. Perhaps this should be a lesson? Whatever foolish idea you had about training obviously did not work."

He grimaced. "It's not something I innovated."

"Whoever invented the method clearly misunderstood how aura training is supposed to work."

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"It came from a Xian noble, so I doubt that."

The Sage squinted at him. "Did this noble have reason to wish you ill?"

"Not at all."

"Then maybe it will prove effective. But clearly it interferes with your duties. I like how rare deaths have become on this base, Hector. Try to avoid these training injuries, if you please."

The day after that the pain declined to the point where Hector could resume his part in the Miasma Mitigation Project. He was no longer in agonizing pain so long as he didn't engage his aura. That almost proved a problem when jackal monsters swarmed the convoy. His escort managed to keep him mostly safe, fortunately. Hector tore a couple monsters apart with cables, then was clawed in the back by one he hadn't noticed in time.

His skin barely bled, but it was a wake-up call. Despite the power of his insight, he wasn't immune to the threat presented by monsters. They could harm him while still clinging to their perverse echo of life. It wasn't until the miasma lost form that it became his to break down.

The day after that, Hector came close to his normal state. He was able to use his aura as needed, with only minor aches that he could ignore. Recovery took three full days. The first and third were bad, the second unbearable. The fourth day was a return to full functionality with just enough 'ouch' remaining to remind him that he'd done something.

He made a trip back to Union Central mostly for the purpose to seeing if the growth in his aura was worth the misery he'd experienced. The survey results reported he'd increased by point one. Hector almost lost his composure at the tepid improvement. All of that pain. Being sidelined for days. For a measly tenth of a level improvement?

Perhaps his anger was not justified. If the growth continued at the same rate, enduring that hell ten times could take someone from the start of five all the way to six. Most Xian would consider that a cheat for their aura training. They might hate every moment, but there were some prices to be paid for getting stronger.

In fact, Hector imagined starting over at level one without the threat looming over Earth. What could he have done with his current knowledge? He had the cheat to get energy from the primordial. He had top tier techniques to train his domain and aura. The mind wasn't particularly hard to improve with access to chaos or miasma. Only the body would be an effort to enhance. He could have done everything properly – hit the peak in every aperture before every advancement.

His ascent would have been rapid. The daydream popped like a soap bubble. He'd gained power only because the Dream Engine had been fired along a miasma corridor to help unempowered worlds about to be attacked. There was no world where he could inherit an insight and then sit back to grow strong in peace.

It was fine. There was a lot he could do at the current moment in the real world. Like spending time with Darius. The eunuch attempted to brush Hector off by telling him that Zara was looking for him, but Hector persisted until he dragged his friend out for a meal.

"You should speak to Zara," Darius insisted. "I believe she has some opportunity for you."

"I don't intend to rejoin her hunt."

Darius shook his head. "They are done with Oceania."

That interested him enough that he went to visit Zara before returning to Aes. She welcomed him into her suite, which consisted of a modest main room, a bedroom, and a private bathroom. It wasn't the height of luxury by normal standards, but so much space for a single person was quite rare in the densely populated Promise City.

"I hear you have some sort of opportunity for me."

Zara studied him. "Did you hear of that from the son of Harridan?"

"Yes."

She sighed. "I do not know how you found him, but do be cautious excavating the past you remember. Onto the opportunity, then. I have an adequate supply of level eight and nine cores for several batches of the mother elixir. Your shopkeeper Wayne helpfully extracted high level water from the blood of the kraken, which speeds up the rate that the Mother operates."

"It sounds like you have had a lot of success."

"I have. My retinue, if such a term applies to them, are stagnating in their growth without access to cores. The opportunity is intended to benefit them, but they need a porter in case they need to withdraw rapidly."

Hector didn't bother pointing out that if she had so many cores it would be a simple manner of sharing her wealth with her nephew and the two women who had served her so well. He understood that making this effort to provide for her subordinates was already quite generous by the standards of her culture. "My work on Aes is important."

"This will not take much of your time. Only two days."

Another question nagged at him. "Why would you need me to be their porter?"

"Lords are not welcome in the nation of Bentley."

Hector raised a brow. "You can't go there?"

"Even my father won't go there. Nor the Lord Annihilator. I doubt even the Emperor of Zing would dare enter the territory of the Ancestor." Zara sat on a sofa and crossed her long legs. "Anything at level ten dies. Weaker entities remain unmolested. Mostly. The people of Bentley are reputed to be peaceful farmers, but there are brigands among their number. That is why I won't send Dorian and the maidens without a porter who can extract them from trouble."

The thought that there was a place on Tian where even Lords feared to tread was not as unsettling as it once might have been. Not after fleeing from a level ten orca. Still, Hector didn't want to rush into a situation he didn't understand. Even if he was intrigued by the intimation that there were valuable resources to be had from these mostly peaceful farmers.

"Who is this Ancestor fellow?"

Zara paused to collect her thoughts. "That is a matter of some debate. He does not speak any modern language, so asking him is impossible. He also is not quite human. The Ancestor is larger and sturdier than our own kind. He is said to have hair so thick across his body it is almost fur. Natural philosophers believe he belonged to a tribe other than humanity which failed to survive into the modern era. The belief from studying cave drawings is that these other people were smarter and stronger than humans, but possessed a fatal flaw."

She paused for dramatic effect. "They were solitary in nature. Ancient humans cooperated with each other, so they were able to win out against superior creatures in the end. All but the one who reached level eleven, gaining the title of God. And he might as well be, given how long he has been around. We know he is at least ten thousand years old."

"And you think it is a good idea for us to go into the territory of this… neanderthal?" Hector only possessed a vague knowledge of ancient anthropology, so he couldn't even speculate on what the Ancestor might be. If he recalled correctly, neanderthals were native to Europe. He wasn't sure what the equivalent nation of Bentley might be on Earth.

"You aren't strong enough to draw the Ancestor's attention. He actively hunts level tens of any species. Level nines occasionally become targets of opportunity, but everyone below that is ignored. The only threat you are likely to face is from brigands eager to relieve foreigners of their property."

Hector knew even asking his next question meant he had been caught up in this scheme. "What are we trying to get from Bentley?"

"Root vegetables."

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