Elder Cultivator-Chapter 1313

As it turned out, the green dust in the Bear Hug System- unofficially named- was extremely radioactive. It also coincidentally was vibrant with natural energy that worked outside traditional physics. The combined result was to a level that it was uncomfortable even for Anton.

“Wow, this is great!” Bear Hug commented. “I knew green things could only be good!”

Anton could only trust that Bear Hug knew what was happening with their own body the best. Just because human anatomy would react extremely poorly to the surrounding environment didn’t mean the same would be true for an algae based being. “Haven’t you seen green fire?”

“That’s only bad when you let it touch you.”

Anton would have mentioned quite a number of green things that were not good to eat, but Bear Hug didn’t eat, so that wasn’t really useful. And of course, Briar had tried to kill Bear Hug many times but that hadn’t stopped them from eventually becoming friends. From what Anton understood, Briar was a stalwart defender of Klar now. Also a consumer of vast amounts of different plants over multiple planets, with Bear Hug tending to the ecosystem to keep things balanced.

Certainly at first it hadn’t been a friendship at all… but Bear Hug had slowly worn down Briar and the other individual was quite a bit more reasonable than before. Anton couldn’t fault someone for being hungry, either for food or for power. It was just what they did with that hunger that could be the problem. Of course, Briar had been quite problematic for a long time but Bear Hug brought about change. It just took a couple centuries.

“I like this place. Can we stay here for a while?”

Anton pondered. “How long are you thinking?”

“Umm…” Bear Hug exaggerated their energy wobbling back and forth. “A few days?”

“That’s fine,” Anton said.

Even if it wasn’t particularly comfortable, it was beautiful to look at. The way the light of the star filtered through the nebula around it provided a unique look. The star itself wasn’t particularly special, but the surrounding nebula was. Whether it had once been an odd planet or was simply a gathering of consistent elements influenced by the surroundings Anton didn’t know, though perhaps someone else would find out. He entertained himself by watching an automatic surveyor drone he pulled out roaming around. Storage bags didn’t do well with living things inside them, but deactivated machines worked just fine.

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Anton first thought that Bear Hug was going to leave behind another of themself, and maybe that was the plan… but ultimately it didn’t happen. Bear Hug did grow physically in the few days they were there, but never split- and they didn’t ask for more time. Anton could have suggested it, but it was likely unnecessary to leave part of Bear Hug far away from any known people.

As they moved on from the ‘Bear Hug System’, they visited a number of others. They consistently deviated from their planned route whenever anything nearby looked interesting. As weeks and months passed by, they continued to move further out of explored space. All of the stars had still been catalogued, but only from a distance. At best, a few had been passed by when explorers came through.

Anton wasn’t really expecting to discover anything groundbreaking, but he figured they might stumble across more occupied systems. Humans had spread far and wide, though nobody truly knew how far. It was impossible to judge by current travel speeds, as those had been developed over the last millennium or so. Then again, it wasn’t impossible that humans once had faster methods of travel and simply encountered calamities.

From what Anton had seen, most of those calamities had been imparted by the upper realms on the lower realms, but that might not extend forever. He had seen how humans could get along in a cooperative manner, and it wasn’t exclusive to just one place. That said, far too many fit into the typical selfish mentality.

Their ultimate goal was still to visit a black hole- not necessarily the closest but the one that would reveal the most about the Trigold Cluster along the way. Perhaps they might learn more about what was beyond them. Any maps they’d managed to get from the Trigold Cluster tapered off not far away from their borders- which either meant that there weren’t many factions beyond or they just didn’t have contact. It was possible they would find the limits of human expansion… or they might stumble upon more vast empires.

Anton would rather prefer they didn’t, mostly because he wasn’t inclined to trust anything particularly large and wouldn’t want to draw attention to the Lower Realms Alliance. However, based on their current charts there wasn’t likely to be anything like that. At least not on the lower realms side of things.

They continued on, finding no systems inhabited by humans. There were some planets with life, but aside from various beasts Anton didn’t spot any signs of sapient life. He thought he was pretty good at picking it out, and with Bear Hug by his side they should have had a pretty broad perspective on such things.

There were a few ruined systems, where only former signs of life remained. Some were clearly through battle- though whether the upper realms were involved or not was difficult to determine given the ancient nature of many battlefields. There weren’t conveniently frozen records in every location.

As they passed through a simple binary star system with a variety of planets from rocky to gas giants, something odd happened. Nothing was supposed to be special about that particular system, but then something spoke to them.

Anton sensed just a small fluctuation of natural energy before it happened. Then a distorted voice was projected to them.

“Reverse flight path. Access to Reneden system denied. Immediately comply or face extermination.”

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Bear Hug reacted. “Oh, what was that? I felt something!”

“It was speaking,” Anton explained.

“Ugh. Maybe I should grow ears.”

“... can you?”

“My bodily makeup has remained exactly the same since the beginning! There’s no way I could do something complex like that. It would be neat, though.”

The voice resounded again. Clearly, the source was impatient. Or perhaps their rate of travel triggered more lines from what Anton was coming to understand as a mechanical voice. “Intruders, be aware that you are on the path to extermination. Feigned ignorance will not protect you.”

Anton wasn’t sure if the floating mechanism included listening systems, but he’d stumbled across a few technological systems in the past. This one once again seemed to have barely functioning defenses… but he could be wrong.

He tried to project his voice back at the device he spotted, floating in empty space. It might have microphones to pick up his response. “Where should we go then?”

He was expecting a repeated, automatic response. Instead, he got an answer- even if it wasn’t all that enlightening. “Return along your previous flight path. Entrance to the Reneden system is forbidden.”

Anton signalled Bear Hug and began to slow their momentum. He wanted to at least comply on some level. “We are already quite far into the system, are we not? Can’t we just pass through?” He didn’t want to provoke anything, but he did want to interact.

“Outer defenses were concealed. Previous stations were scanning. It has been determined that you are unauthorized.”

Anton wondered if there really was anything before what they had just encountered. It certainly had been subtle, if it existed. He could usually feel even pure tech scans, though he supposed passive methods wouldn’t have revealed much.

“Can you connect me with someone to request passage?”

The robotic voice repeated its prior sentiment. “Passage is unauthorized. Intruders will return from the direction they came, or be annihilated.”

Anton was going to say something more, but Bear Hug spoke instead- even though they didn’t like making sounds. “We don’t want to be annihilated. Can’t we just be friends?”

The mechanical voice replied smoothly. “Illusory techniques will not fool the robust sensory mechanisms of the Reneden system. Negotiations for peace have been denied due to no prior authorization.”

Bear Hug threw their hands on their hips- after forming hands and hips, obviously. Most of the time they were content being a green mass, especially in space. “Well that just doesn’t make any sense. Obviously we have to begin somewhere to become friends! If you had to already be friends either everything would be great all the time or nobody would get anywhere! And sadly, people aren’t all born friends with each other.”

Anton inspected the area as his friend took over the negotiations. If necessary, he was certain he could pull them away from any sort of attack. Except… he couldn’t sense any threats. Which either meant this system’s defenses were so far beyond his capabilities he couldn’t even sense them or…

Somehow, Anton thought the mechanical voice sounded hesitant now. “Protocol mandates that you return to the route you came or face immediate extermination.” It certainly had a wide variety of responses prepared.

“... If we go over there,” Bear Hug said. “Can we start being friends?”

“We will not be friends if you are annihilated.” Up until that point, Anton was leaning towards the voice being an automated system of some sort. Now, he was more certain it was distorting the voice of some person hidden elsewhere.

“Okay, we’ll start with that,” Bear Hug agreed. “Come on, Anton.” They had already ceased their forward momentum, so they began accelerating away from the center of the system. Once they got a bit further… “Hey, you’re getting really far, mister Reneden box. Can you tell us where some of the outer defenses are so we can talk to you there?”

This time, Anton was sure the voice hesitated. “...The outer defenses are hidden. You will have to put in the effort to reach this communications relay device.” Ah, the voice finally confirmed that.

“Okay but it’s so far. I have trouble reaching this far and making sound. Can we pull you closer, mister box?”

“... I am not a box.”

“Sorry, words are hard. I mean can we grab the box you are speaking through? Is it okay to move it?”

“That will be allowed.”

Once he had permission, Anton folded some of his energy around the freefloating device, pulling it closer. He did so slowly, but it was gradually coming closer as Bear Hug talked.

“Now that you’re coming this way,” Bear Hug said. “We can be friends, right? We won’t go anywhere you don’t want, but you should ask nicely okay?”

The device didn’t appear to have sufficient energy to be able to project the voice it generated very far, though it still managed to connect to Anton and Bear Hug’s extended energies. “Why do you speak so differently in this illusory form?”

“I literally have no idea what you are talking about,” Bear Hug said. “But it’s so hard to talk without vocal chords. Did you know that?”

“I have not found that to be the case.”

Anton grinned internally. Bear Hug’s straightforwardness and strangeness were quite disarming. Already, they were being spoken to instead of given orders. However, something was still strange about the situation. Anton’s insight into the speaker’s motivations wasn’t picking up as much as he would have liked.

“But it’s so hard when you don’t have them! I can make myself shaped a lot like a human but it doesn’t help because I’m still doing all the work with my energy anyway. Anton has it easy.” Bear Hug barely paused in their speech. It wasn’t as if they had to take a breath, so once they were motivated they could continue forever. “Your voice sounds funny. Is it the box? Is the box broken? Do you need someone to fix the box? I don’t know if I can fix it right now because technology is hard, but I definitely know someone who could figure it out! If it’s easy to do, maybe they could tell me how.”

“All systems are working at full capacity.”

Anton doubted that. “So these exposed wires are supposed to be that way?”

He didn’t get a direct answer. Instead… “This plant thing really isn’t manipulated by you?”

“If your natural energy sensors are functioning properly, I would assume you can tell.”

“The presumption that you were faking your energy was more probable.”

They still hadn’t addressed the clear damage to the device. Anton was tempted to try to scan it with some of the devices they had… but he figured it would be better to wait. Maybe once they were friends the person on the other end wouldn’t mind. Bear Hug would be handling that soon enough, no doubt.

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