Limitless Path

Beth reset the gate after their talk, as she didn't really need to train just in the residence. Having the gate again on a beast type and a simple layout would let everyone get in and get some leveling done, though nobody was rushing to hit rebirth eleven. They weren't dawdling, but now that they had all managed to get their Mana Physiques and had made the jump to Enlightened, they had more than a little time and breathing room on their hands. There was one other thing she wanted to do, now that nearly a full day had passed between her forming her Ideal and everything else getting done. If she were being honest, she also wanted to do it just a bit because there was a perverse part of her that liked to gloat a bit.

She had moved into the gate with the others, and they had killed a lot of the things nearby, a standard practice they had started doing some time ago to give some additional breathing room around the entrance, when she sat off on her own. The others had all moved further out and in, and she took out a simple wood chair that she had stashed that was nice to sit on and fairly rugged, something she didn't mind smacking down in the middle of a field or on a rocky outcropping. Once she was seated, she sent a ping, as she thought of it, into the reliquary, signaling to all the occupants that she wanted them to come out for something. Considering it had been a few days since she called on any of them, they all responded at once, appearing within a handful of seconds.

"Well, girl?" Zel said, looking around. "We've seen the gate power of the Silver Flame Empress before."

"Not my power," said Liveria, though it sounded like she was speaking by rote. Clearly, this was an old discussion, which she proved by saying, "We've covered this before. I found it in a space connected to the Age of Strife."

"Yes, yes," Zel said, waving the conversation away like a bad smell on the breeze.

"I just thought I'd show you all something," Beth said calmly, but a bit of smirk did creep into her voice. She held her hand out and produced her white flame atop it, and the reactions she instantly got were everything she had hoped for and more. There were looks of shock and awe, Odorra had dove to the ground, Zel immediately produced strange tools that he started using to do some kind of analysis, and Liveria leapt on Beth and grabbed her arm, almost putting her face in the flame as she stared at it extremely intently.

"You know what it is, then?" Beth asked, the smirk on full display as she had boundless mirth in her tone.

"How?!" Liveria demanded, wiggling Beth's arm around as she stared at the flame.

"Oh, you know, I just thought about space and how I fit with it very hard and, poof, there it was," she said, nearly cackling as she watched the stun reactions of the thirteen of them.

"I could throttle you," Liveria snapped.

"Too bad you can't actually hurt me," Beth laughed, puffing a bit of flame at the much older woman, which she deftly dodged.

"Hey! That could actually be dangerous!" Liveria snapped.

"Don't be a baby. You have thirty-nine damn rebirths on me," Beth scoffed.

"Don't take Ideals so lightly," Ragnheiðr, the titan empress, scolded her. "Those things are so rare and difficult to achieve for a host of reasons, but the reward is well worth it. The kind of boost in power that must be giving you is unreal, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. Ideals are powerful stuff, and even enemies you normally wouldn't stand a chance against would have to be wary of one."

"Well, good, maybe I can show Zane a thing or two next time," Beth smirked.

"Zane who?" asked Belladonna, the woman who bore a strong resemblance to Val.

"He's a Manumitted that we know," Beth said, reveling in the round of spluttering and coughing that that statement caused.

"I wouldn't be so cocky," Liveria said. "Ragnheiðr was right about you needed to be careful, but that only applies up to rebirth one hundred. Somebody who's gotten beyond that point is way stronger than you can imagine; they've got their Ideal, but they've also gone far beyond that. I don't know exactly how strong this person you're talking about it, but they very likely could wipe the floor with most Exalted and, as you just pointed out, you're lacking quite a few rebirths to be at that level."

"Point taken," Beth said.

"You know you can fly now, right?" Apogee asked.

"Uh, what?" Beth asked, very intelligently, in response.

"Ideals defy the standard laws of physics and mana. That's the level you're at now," the monster Empyrean responded. "It might tire you at somewhat fast at your current rebirth, but you can fly with an Ideal."

"Oh," Beth said, making the chair disappear as she stood. She wasn't sure how to do what Apogee suggested, but it took literally seconds to figure out, Beth lifting off the ground to hover above even the tallest Empyrean. "OH!"

"Impressive," said General Alfred, the very cold Empyrean in military uniform, using his usual deadpan tone.

"This is so…well, cool!" Beth exclaimed, flying in a circle before tumbling through the air for a minute. Eventually, she decided to land, though she noticed that close to ten minutes of using her Ideal to fly in the air hadn't really tired her out. "I wonder if there's something else I can with it? I think…maybe like…this?"

Beth concentrated for a minute and nothing seemed to happen, with all the Empyreans just giving her questioning looks. Several of them were still taking measurements or readings for what her Ideal was and how it was formed, but the rest were just watching her. Watching her do a whole lot of nothing, or so it first appeared, as Beth had just closed her eyes and held her right hand in front of her chest, slowly curling it into a fist. She stayed like that for nearly the full minute, the Empyreans sharing looks and just shrugging, when Beth suddenly wasn't there any more. There was a flash of white fire and a tearing sound like someone had just shredded a massive blanket in less than a second and she wasn't there. The Empyreans all shared surprised and confused looks, more of them taking out instruments to measure mana or activating skills.

Stolen story; please report.

As they were still studying what was happening, Beth reappeared, a little white flame appearing where she had been standing before bursting to transform into her. Beth wiped her brow, noticeably red and sweating, as she huffed for air for a moment. Whatever it was she was doing, it was clearly taking a bit of a toll on her. She straightened and drank a full bottle of water in one long pull before giving a satisfied huff and stretching her arms and back. On seeing the looks from the Empyreans turning into glares, she decided it might be a good idea to explain.

"My Ideal is based around space and fire, mostly annihilating space, but it's also based around manipulating spatial principles. If my Ideals based around space, and it by default lets me do manipulations like flight, I thought 'What if it can let me do other manipulations?' So, I tried to use just my Ideal in the same way I use Spatial Step to teleport and, while kinda messy, it worked! I showed up right next to my wife, which surprised the hell out of her, but I was able to teleport to where she was. I had to really concentrate, but I was able to teleport back as well," Beth explained.

"Firstly, you're using Spatial Step? Blech, get that upgraded, girl," Belladonna said with a slightly derisive tone. "Secondly, you were able to do a full teleport with nothing but your Ideal. No other skills or mana power?"

"Nope, just the Ideal. At least, it felt like it was just the Ideal and nothing else," Beth replied.

"Geniuses," Erosh sighed, shaking his head.

"Uh, what?" Beth said for the second time in just as many minutes.

"More complex, finer manipulations of an Ideal like that are very difficult, sometimes outright impossible for most people. Well, this is what my research suggests," Zel explained, several others nodding along. "There is certainly a reason you made your Ideal so early; you appear to have a great affinity with the concept involved and with the process itself. You being able to figure out, on your own, such an advanced technique for using the Ideal with little outside instructions shows you understand it at a fundamental level, even if that understanding is instinctual in nature."

"Oh, well, I guess I'm just that good," Beth said, grinning a bit and striking a pose.

"You are, at many times, insufferable, girl," General Alfred commented before disappearing, returning to the reliquary.

"The old grump and I agree on few things, but he is correct," Aodene, the elf Empyrean, said before also disappearing.

"Do the teleport again," Zel commanded, still scanning her with several instruments.

"Better hear a fucking please on that one," Beth immediately snapped back.

"Could you please do the teleport again," Zel ground out, clearly not used to bowing to the whims of a rebirths ten Enlightened who had something he desperately needed.

"Oh, sure," Beth said, flipping back over to cheery. This time, she was even faster with it, taking less than ten seconds to figure out what she was doing and teleport away. It was even quicker the fourth time, likely much quicker, assuming she stopped to say something to Sera or whoever she teleported next to. Beth popped back into existence with a small wave of flame after just five seconds, though it wasn't totally free. Despite having thousands of Endurance and quite a lot factors boosting her, she looked like a regular, everyday person that had just finished running a marathon.

"Okay," she panted. "Getting better at it, but that sucks. I feel like I need a nap."

"If you need to sleep, do it here," Zel said. "I'm still getting valuable data."

"What's your obsession with the measuring, anyway," Beth asked as she straightened up and drank another full bottle, this one some kind of sports drink that the CRA carried that she had plenty of copies of.

"I do not know if you noticed, girl, but there are very, very few Exalted around," Zel started to say.

"Not that I noticed; I know five," Beth interrupted, holding up a hand with all fingers splayed and wiggling that.

"You are the exception, a daft exception, and not the rule," Zel snapped. He then said, more calmly, "Where was I? Oh yes; as you may have noticed, there are not very many Exalted around, and I speak specifically of the Milky Way. Their numbers are already vanishingly low, and, considering you know several, you must understand the personalities of such beings. How many do you think I have been able to train my sensors on and observe at all, let alone for hours at a time while they used their Ideal? The answer, before you try to guess and fail miserably, is zero. You present all of us a very unique case, even though you are not yet officially an Exalted, as you have and Ideal, the most important point, and can control it to a high degree. You are still, technically, in somewhat of a nascent stage, not being at the required rebirth, but that merely gives us more opportunity to observe and compare notes."

"Well, okay, that makes sense," Beth said, sighing as she made a bowl of soup appear and started rapidly eating.

"When you have finished doing…whatever it is you are doing to that poor, innocent bowl of soup, I would like to conduct a final test for today," Zel said.

"Sure, shoot," Beth said between bites, inhaling the bowl in a few more breaths.

"I want you to limit test," Zel said. At Beth's confused look, he explained, "I would like you to pick somewhere far away and teleport there. To not confuse the data, I would like you to step out of your constructed boundary skill and then do the teleport. I would like to see if using your Ideal to move through space has a limit, or, more likely, judge what the limit currently is."

"Oh, that's easy," Beth said with a shrug. She walked out of the gate, the rest of the Empyreans that had not gone back in the reliquary following along behind her. They had long ago established that the actual portal of the gate itself didn’t add distance, meaning that the Empyreans could remain active on one side of the gate when she was on the other without too much strain, provided they didn't go too far from the gate. It wasn't a big concern now, as they were all either in the suite with her or in the reliquary.

She picked an easy destination, one she had been to plenty of times, though it was rather far away. "Uh, if I go really far away, won't that pull you with me?" she asked.

"It will, but it takes several full seconds to kick in," Zel explained, anchoring his equipment to the suite living room floor. "We can watch from here, and my sensors will remain and observe what happens."

"Okay, then, here I go," Beth said, concentrating for a couple seconds before vanishing in a puff of flame and a mildly ripping noise. The Empyreans watched her disappear and scanned the area with their skills before they were tugged on, a most distinctly unpleasant sensation in the way it happened, and appeared in a luxuriously furnished, large office. Selene had just started to hug Beth when she went on high alert, but Beth intercepted her with a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

"They’re with me," she ground out before halfway collapsing.

"Beth!" Selene exclaimed, quickly carrying her over to a couch. "Who are you and what is happening."

That last was directed at the Empyreans, and Liveria answered. "It's a long story, but we're a small group of Ascended that are bound to Beth. She's testing a new power and wanted to push the envelope. We watched her activate the power from her suite at a CRA Hall and then we were pulled along after because of how the binding works."

"Ah, I see, that explains it, though I'd like specifics later," Selene said.

"It's fine," Beth grumbled from the couch. "Oh, hey, Selene, look."

Beth held up a hand and made a small flame from her Ideal appear, shocking a gasp out of the greater demoness. "Beth! That's an Ideal, and not just a physical understanding! It's a fully realized Ideal!"

"I'm awesome, right?" Beth asked before slumping back on the couch.

"Her Ideal has to do with both flame and spatial concepts, and she found she can use it to teleport," Zel explained, manipulating an interface only he could see. "She just acquired the Ideal not even one full day ago and has been pushing it quite hard. I assume she has overdrawn her stamina and soul to do so and is now exhausted."

"Easy to do even at fifty rebirths," Selene answered, glaring down at Beth. "That wasn't well though-out."

"It's fine," Beth waved it off. "I came here because, well, it's you and Alex. And, I mean, getting back from here to where I need to be is easy, too, so it all works out. I can take the regular teleporters."

Selene flicked her forehead, saying, "It's not fine, but we will discuss this later."