Chapter 1145
Anticipation. That was what Catarina felt as she let energy flow into the formation in front of her. If she was making use of the solar platform for precisely its standard functions, she would have no reason to feel much of anything except confidence. She knew it would work as designed, as it had done so before she reached Domination and had continued to do so afterwards.
But seeing Timothy break rules even normal cultivators had to deal with had inspired her to try more radical things herself. If all that happened with Domination was that her fighting abilities rose another level, Catarina would be extremely disappointed. Combat was never the goal. Even when trying to survive against invading armies, Catarina wouldn’t reach for her sword first.
It was much better to concoct a situation where there couldn’t even be combat. To win before a battle could begin. That hadn’t quite worked against Zaur Beridze, but they had at least achieved the possibility of victory beforehand, which wouldn’t have otherwise existed without formations.
But formations were good for more things than just winning. They had massive utility, and while Catarina thought they had tapped into most of what was possible, she certainly didn’t believe that everything had been achieved. And there might be a few things that simply required extra power.
The formation in front of her was almost fully powered, but Catarina’s energy wasn’t just flowing into it but through her. Unlike Chidi, she hadn’t created specific permanent formations inside of herself, but she could replicate certain applications temporarily with her understanding and sufficient power. Moreso at Domination, where power felt almost limitless.
Power surged and the world shifted in front of her eyes, resolving into… nothing. Or rather, a field of stars around her as was the case anywhere that could see the sky and wasn’t overwhelmed by other light. But nothing of note within a few lightyears. She was between systems, away from anything.
Exactly as intended. That was step one functioning. She did some basic calculations with known stars just to make certain she ended up in the right place- otherwise she wouldn’t want to attempt the next stage of her experiments. To the level of precision her calculations could be accurate, she was confident she had appeared in the correct location. That was important, because for the second step being a tenth of a percent off in the wrong direction would be extremely awkward.
She probably wouldn’t die if she ended up inside a star or buried at the core of a planet, but it was better to not have to test things like that.
Catarina then repeated the process in reverse, activating a temporary formation around and within herself formed of pure energy- but much more solid than she could have previously created. She had a few thoughts about that, but they would be considered in more detail later. First she called out to one of the platforms bound to her, activating it with her energy.