ACCR Chapter 9 Pain of Interaction


    I rolled up my fingers, clenching them into a fist, which I then released, repeating that particular motion at regular intervals. My hands were behind my back as I stood beside the rectangular hole that was the window, allowing me a glimpse outside the hull of the ship.


    Zeus!


    Just the mere thought of the man still breathing was enough to bring about a grinding of my teeth. Lily Toba had been the perfect pawn, the catalyst that would make those that were lacking justification, a reason to move against the man, yet, I had let her go. No, before that, I had told her the truth.


    Had that decision been foolish? Yes. There was no doubt about that. But lying to her would have made me feel far worse.


    I stifled a sigh and instead focused on the crowds that were moving through the transparent walk ways. The volume of people moving to and from Mars was the highest compared to anywhere in the solar system... Except of course, Earth.


    Ever since the terraforming''s completion a few hundred years back, settlers and visitors alike had made it their most important destination.


    "You humans are a fascinating species. No, all biological lifeforms with sapience are interesting in a variety of ways..." started Paul as he moved to stand beside me.


    "There is nothing fascinating about us. Emotions always burden us."


    ".... Even when paired with a quantum chip capable of calculating the impossible, I still haven''t managed to give birth to true emotions. You take such for granted, but I envy..."


    "Envy?" I gave the robotic body a side eye.


    "That is not an emotion. My calculations have simply led to the logical conclusion that emotions are needed in order to be capable of further evolution."


    "Just like I don''t understand your logic, you also wouldn''t understand why I call emotions a burden. Of course, there are as many moments when I am thankful for them too."


    A lull came into the conversation, where we simply stood there, a man and an AI, experiencing the passage of time.


    "Did you find anything?"


    "Syncing with the All-mother is always a pain, but, I have managed to dig out something that even made her alert the President himself."


    Those words alone instantly dragged all of my attention towards Paul.


    "What do you mean?"


    "Pantheon and all the big sects are up to something shady."


    "Many characters, mostly those that possessed weird spirit energy attunements and unusual talents have been disappearing from the face of the Earth without explanation."


    "Many cultivators do vanish. What''s different this time?"


    "Because most of them have had certain interactions with those sects before their apparent disappearances. Some even came out to speak about how they had been threatened, scouted, or even allowed to join, only to vanish from both the public and private eye in a matter of months, with some even taking years!"


    "And what makes these disappearances bizarre is the fact that they started just a few years after the creation of Pantheon itself!"


    The beginning of the sect called Pantheon had been an event that was still extensively contested by scholars. Why?


    Simply because of the fact that the first generation Zeus had brought about a change that had caused the sects to forever be beyond normal clans and loose cultivators.


    Revolutionary array technology, never before seen or even pioneered by any cultivator had simply came out of his mind as if granted by the gods themselves.


    Even now, in an Era beyond his time, it was still unanimously believed that the sects possessed technology superior to the Federation.


    Even I had to admit that all the advances I could see were a result of plundering, battering and coercion, courtesy of the sects.


    "Can you send me some data on the people that have vanished?"


    "Okudu Emmanuel, a man touted as a genius in the art of spatial arrays, vanished in the year 127 of the Federation..."


    While sending the data, Paul spoke of some figures.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    "Tayson Lee, a mechanical engineer who figured out how to embed attuned spiritual energy within metals-"


    "How come the Federation never protected some of these people?" I asked in puzzlement. There were those that had vanished even before the entity known as the Federation had come to be, but through the list, there were those that had been kidnapped during its reign.


    "As you can see, the disappearances stopped roughly 200 years ago. Before that, there had been no universal database, or even the registration of citizenship. Plus, the Federation hadn''t been all powerful then. There had still been factions and countries."


    After a nod, my vision blurred as I chose a point in the distance, superimposing my existence upon that space, and teleportung towards it.


    It was a suite, one I had booked prior to my arrival, allowing me to set up an anchor for seamless teleportation. I plopped down onto the white sofa upon materializing.


    The decor was amazingly good, making it feel as if I was a king in their own palace. Shades of blacks and whites were the prevalent colors of the room. With my divine sense unfurled, I scrutinized every thing within, trying to find anything that could be taken as a breach in privacy.


    In merely a micro-second, when everything had been done, I released my spiritual energy, molding it into a thin barrier that rested upon the surface of each and everything within the room, effectively creating a domain where only my power was existing.


    Of course there was still the threat of being spied upon through divine sense because of its invasive nature. Only the body of a biological creature, even a mortal, was immune to the invasive nature of the ability. Though, a cultivator always knows when another''s divine sense washes over them.


    I had heard rumors of a technology capable of repelling divine sense scans, but it was in the hands of the sects, making it a strategic resource that allowed them to shield their secrets from us.


    It was also one of the reasons why, I wasn''t actively barging into Pantheon.


    After setting up all that, I paced back and forth in the room, hesitating as to whether I would really like to contact those people right now.


    Questions were going to be asked. Questions I didn''t feel like answering right now.


    Yet... The information I had gained from Paul was important enough to warrant that. It was a dilemma indeed.


    Ultimately, I sucked a deep breath before initiating contact with a subtle frequency permeating the airspace, the only electromagnetic frequency I had allowed breach my domain.


    "So... How did it go?"


    That was the first question, with the person asking it having his fiery red gaze piercing through me... Anyway that was what I felt.


    "For now... We wait." I chose my words carefully, even making sure to school my features into a stoic mask.


    "We...wait... Did everything go according to plan, or did you become soft hearted?"


    He was trying to maintain a sliver of calmness even though his facial expression was warping, and his fiery red pupils were getting brighter.


    "No... There is no need to ask any more, Dalton. Instead, there is some piece of intelligence that I must transmit to you."


    "... He must have divulged the truth. It''s good that we already had certain plans in motion or else we would have gone back to zero."


    A voice cut in after a sigh, with someone finally appearing. It was a woman, a tall one, whose hand was resting upon the hilt of her sword, strapped around her waist.


    " Mr. Mumaso... Are you truly a man having the same goal as us, or are you just playing around?"


    "Dalton... I am the one that gathered you all. Taking down that sect is our goal, but I refuse to let innocents suffer just because I crave vengeance!"


    "We were going to make sure that she and her clan were well protected!"


    "Even I, a Nascent Soul cultivator, can''t be certain to provide that much protection. What makes you believe that you could?!"


    I glared at the man within the screen with an intensity that didn''t lose out to his, thereby throwing the atmosphere into an awkward well.


    "Let me talk to him. Move out of my chair Dalton!" shouted another voice before the man grudgingly broke eye contact and stood up.


    "Reed! It''s good to finally see you after five years! How have you been? Has anything succeeded? Have you stumbled onto another game changing creation?"


    "Calm down, Latniss. Paul, my assistant, managed to connect with the Federal archive, discovering something important related to Pantheon and other large sects."


    "OH!"


    Those words even pulled Dalton back into the screen frame.


    "I am going to send the data. Peruse it and see if you can spot any other anomalies or entanglements that we missed."


    With that, I turned off the communications just after sending the packet. Latniss was a bundle of energy I didn''t want to handle right now.


    Once again, I plopped down onto the sofa, feeling wrung out after enduring some emotional baggage previously.


    Before I could relax my mind, a query came in, one which was related to a data file. For a moment I became puzzled. After all I was certain that I hadn''t been expecting any file.


    The sender was Latniss though, so I accepted. Then an image appeared within my mind, one of a woman totally out of her element. For a moment, I couldn''t figure out who she was, only for my body to jerk upwards upon realizing whom I really was looking at.


    -----


    Right about now, I fervently wished that I could directly teleport to the woman, instead of having to prepare myself to sail through the crowd. They were all strangers, yet it would still be uncomfortable when even a small percentage of them cast their attention towards me. Not to mention the fact that those Core Formations will recognize me as a Nascent Soul cultivator due to the spiritual energy I would be radiating, no matter how minute it was going to be.


    Why was I rushing towards her in the first place? Because she had gone to a shady establishment. The ports of Mars were a mix of white, black, and a bit of both. It was the perfect place for anyone with unsavory ideas to act!


    What is that woman thinking!?


    After a sigh, I made my way out of the room, the normal boring way, which was to walk. Running or taking those long strides was forbidden due to the simple fact that the building materials wouldn''t be capable of holding up to to cultivators flexing their powers.


    Though, before I hit the streets, I made sure to apply some of spiritual energy to my face, morphing my features, and also taking measures to slightly alter my aura. As much as I didn''t want to admit it, I was still a big celebrity in the world. And fame, came with the problem of interacting with people.


    Through the crowded street, I made my way towards my destination, passing by people who had just arrived and were in the middle of preparing for their descent down onto the planet''s surface, and those that were preparing to take ships back to Earth, or towards the myriad asteroids.


    There were families, businessmen, impetuous youth, and many other kinds, with some that evoked disgust, while there were those that made me feel warm and fuzzy.


    After a few minutes, I reached my destination, which had a holographic signboard that depicted a glass, with a grasshopper''s leg instead of the usual stem.


    There was a line of people, seamingly being checked to prove their age, before they could enter.


    I walked up to the bouncers, cultivators who were at the peak of Foundation Establishment, and let out a sliver of my aura, though keeping the discharge within Core Formation levels. They stepped aside, with I walking in, leaving behind the street noise, only to be assaulted by the raging music inside the bar.


    The alcohol, the height of debauchery, the stink of smoke from exotic herbs and demon parts, the smell of aphrodisiacs in the air. This was a dump, one I didn''t even want to be in.


    With an intention of will, my emerald spiritual energy formed a thin film across my body, separating me from the atmosphere, while filtering any air that touched it.


    Only then, did I breathe a sigh of relief and started plotting how I was gonna push through this crowd of people riding on a high.


    Though, this was partly my fault. These people would have been holed up in abodes, trying to assail the next realm such that their lifespan could increase. But now, they could reach Foundation Establishment in their teens, giving them plenty of time to assail the next great cultivation realm.


    I pushed through the crowd, eventually reaching the bar counter, where two men had cornered the woman, trying to strike up a conversation.


    Yet, before I could even barge into the conversation, the words were smothered when I beheld her. The Lily Toba I had met before was a beautiful cool calm and collected lady who gave off intellectual vibes. But this!


    All those words still described her, and yet, the dress, the makeup and the jewelery enhanced everything about her to the point that I froze.


    Wow!


    Two straps held up a dress that hugged her body to the point that it emphasized her curves, not to mention the fact that it was short enough to only end in the middle of her thighs. Her legs were crossed, with the dress itself almost transparent, wetting the appetite of all that laid eyes on her.


    Her gaze was one of boredom as she listened to the two men on each of her sides, trying to woo her.


    She had become a goddess. I started having second thoughts about approaching her.


    What if she ignored me here?


    That was a situation that would embarrass me.


    Then her eyes met mine, and widened. She abruptly stood up and I could feel the heat creeping up her cheeks even from here.


    "Wha-What are you doing here?!"