Magma Dragon's Heir

11th of Season of Air, Year 322 AL

Over the years, Newt got to see firsthand the lesson Lady Woodhopper had once taught him. His parents, brothers and sister had died off, then their children. Casual acquaintances followed next, faces frequently seen, but names too unimportant to commit to memory.

His friends, most of them, had reached at least the fifth realm, and they were still alive. Of his non-biological brother and sisters, Sharprock was long gone, and he was attending Greenbow’s funeral, thinking about how transient all the people were becoming in his life. She looked so fragile; the once huge, muscular woman had turned into a withered granny, probably lighter than her leg once was.

He recalled her escorting him to Explorer’s Island, and how they traveled through the jungle, and how she “helped” him at the Sage’s Realm tournament by pretending they were romantically involved…

Maelstrom nudged him with her shoulder.

Of everyone gathered, I am the highest realm. It was an odd thought, followed by an even odder one. Well, besides Maelstrom, but she’s an outsider.

Lady Alabaster and Lord Flameax had long since reached the seventh realm, and were still in it, their surviving children at the fourth and fifth. Emeraldstreak and Rexheart had both caught up with them, and unlike Alabaster and Flameax, they kept pushing forward, grasping for more.

There were other people who identified themselves as the Explorer’s Gate, but the old division into orders was gone. Clans still held firm, but they were much more cutthroat and merciless than they had been when it came to resources.

The older generation gave the new every chance they could, but the concept of giving someone resources so they could grow sheltered had been abandoned three centuries ago. If you were weak, you took a trade; if you lacked the talent, you were capped at the third realm. No cuddling, no gifts, just the merciless wheel of time, milling the weak, the lazy, and the incompetent under its weight.

Newt spared a flicker of his will to pass through the crowd.

Goodair is next. She was at the fourth realm, well over five hundred years old, and ever since the Blood Cult had attacked the Explorer’s Gate, her spirit was crushed. And it would have been worse had she joined him to visit the Eternal Light Empire.

Considering the number of people that had once lived in the empire, the loss of less than a hundred thousand individuals should’ve gone unnoticed, even if they were high in simple administration and control of their territories. But the loss of all those exalts and resources had shrunk the empire considerably.

Billions had died, not to saurians, but to cultists running rampant in the abandoned areas.

Furthermore, awakening amongst common people, which was rare and difficult even in Newt’s youth, no longer happened. Everything was directly run by the imperials and nobility; outsiders were never trusted. Newt knew humanity was brutal; he had learned it when he was thirteen. He knew the depths one would stoop to for wealth or power, but seeing it implemented on such a grand scale was something else. Non-awakened were treated somewhere between cattle and slaves, kept safe by the herdsmen, attacked by ferocious, bloodthirsty raptors in the form of cultists.

It was the natural consequence of the empire shrinking; the awakened didn’t wish to bother with the well-being of those beneath them.

Newt could understand the sentiment to an extent. Non-awakened lived such short, powerless lives; what was the worth of them? But, unlike the imperials and royal scions and patriarchs, Newt spent his adolescence digging in the dark.

Even if his life had been destined to be short and worthless, there was no need for it to be a torture. An amalgamation of pain and darkness. Nobody deserved that, except, perhaps, as a fitting punishment for one’s crimes.

And Greenbow was entering that darkness. It was her final destination, getting buried, forever alone, forever in the dark.

Would it be mine?

They called it immortality, but exalts certainly weren’t immortal. True, they aged slowly, very slowly. And if one reached the tenth realm young enough, they could live for tens of thousands of years, but they would still die. Assuming they didn’t meet a more violent end before passing away from old age.

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He looked at Maelstrom, her beautiful face, her serious expression, the slight frown, which would one day form wrinkles, after enough centuries passed.

“We are mortal,” he said as they returned home after the ceremony. “We pretend we aren’t, but we’re terribly mortal. Even the dark gods are mortal, for they can be slain. Dandelion killed one, and we might have to kill more one day. It’s strange how we’re ignoring it and pretending otherwise, expecting we would live forever. I wonder whether Greenbow was surprised when death arrived? Whether she had made peace with her, no, our, inescapable future.”

“Newstar?” Maelstrom said seriously, and he regarded her. “Shut up. How’s your realm coming along? Are you at least trying to catch up to me?”

Due to Newt’s decision not to waste others’ resources and advancing solely through his celestial baptisms, his realm only expanded for about three quarters of an hour every eighty years. If one took it just as two hours of effort, Newt’s rate of growth was monstrous, but if one took it as his total advancement in two hundred and fifty years, his results were abysmally slow.

Newt didn’t mind. He expanded his realm at a pace matching his ability to sculpt it, keeping it slightly ahead the entire time. There was no need to expand it any faster, and the extra energy went into making his realm and body more solid.

“While expanding one’s realm is certainly important, and it offers an immediate increase in strength,” Newt said slowly, “in the long run it doesn’t matter, and having more stable foundations is considerably more beneficial.”

“I’ll take that as a no,” Maelstrom said smugly.

“You do realize I spar with exalts and trounce them in raw physical power most of the time?”

“Sounds like something someone who isn’t winning would say.” She smirked. “Winners don’t need to say anything to prove they are winning; it should be obvious.”

“Mel,” Newt sent straight to her without speaking a word by relying on mana. “When we get home, I’m gonna show you who’s winning.”

“A massage would do nicely,” she winked, and that was the end of that conversation.

***

“You’re progressing quite nicely,” the Grand Scholar said, parrying Newt’s glaive with his spear. “You’re still relying too much on the power of your body to overwhelm me, but otherwise, your technique is taking solid steps forward. To be honest, you slowing down right now is a good thing. Once you hit the next realm, we’ll be hard-pressed to present a proper challenge. I’m attacking again.”

A sharp thrust followed the warning, aimed at Newt’s heart, and he pivoted out of the way even before his danger sense triggered. In response, Newt’s glaive came slashing down, crashing towards the ancient expert like a tidal wave.

Newt stopped it as it nearly touched the point between the neck and the shoulder.

“Good control, too,” the Grand Scholar said, unconcerned with the blade hanging not an inch from his torso, then jokingly poked at Newt’s chest again. “I would love to see your magical techniques, but wasting energy on spars without the rest of the empire to cover the cost is wasteful beyond mortal understanding. Are you training regularly in your realm?”

Newt nodded. He was. And while the loss of mana wasn’t as hard on him, since all he would have to do was draw in more on his next baptism, for exalts, the energy lost was lost for good, and drawing more would take years or more.

“Honest feedback?” Newt asked.

“Just about every exalt from the core of the family would mop the floor with you, myself included, but it comes at a cost I don’t think any of us are willing to pay during sparring.” The Grand Scholar didn’t mince words. “But, you still have a lot of room to grow, and with each passing century your strength will keep on growing while we stagnate. Overall, once you enter the next realm, only a handful of people, who terrify even me, will be your match. And that’s just after you enter the realm; once you grow further, you will leave them in the dust.”

The old man chuckled with a hint of resignation.

“I still can’t believe that kid Blaze managed to have a descendant like you. Had you been mine, I would’ve already been raising you for the next emperor, and once you took the throne, we could have handled everything above board, fixed the country without all this mess.”

He sighed and shook his head.

“Now, back to the spearmanship lesson. That was a good counterattack. Quite lethal against most, but most lack proper defensive measures, and without a supercharged technique to accompany your slash, there’s no chance you would pierce them.”

He squinted at Newt.

“You have one, right? Otherwise, this is just suicide planning.”

“I do. Can we continue with the weapons training, please?”

The old man nodded and attacked again, this time fighting as if Newt had a technique that would pierce his defenses.

In Newt’s eyes, the Grand Scholar looked like he was one foot in the grave. In reality, most exalts they had in Soaring Freedom would be well in their graves if they dared challenge the Grand Scholar to a real fight.

And for the first time since sparring with Dandelion, Newt had found someone who could actually teach him something properly. Not like Lady Alabaster fumbling around, or Gatemaster Greenthorn just sending him to figure things out on his own.

What would’ve life been like had I had a tutor like this from the start?

Surprisingly, Newt thought he would’ve turned out weaker than he did when surrounded by people who forced him to figure things out on his own.