“The word ‘appreciate’ can have so many definitions, don’t you think?”
Wei Shi Jaran shaded his new eyes as he watched the flying ships approach from the east. Only long years of practice allowed him to keep up his stoic front.
He could see again. Even the pattern on the bark of a tree was fascinating to him now, and this display…he couldn’t believe he had almost missed half the sky changing colors, like a dozen different flavors of sunset.
He almost regretted not taking his son up on the offer of new eyes immediately. Almost. But in the end, he had been right to avoid the risk.
Whatever advancement Lindon had achieved, he was still an amateur. Jaran had been reluctant enough to allow his own wife to attach the Remnant’s eyes to his, and he had only allowed that because advancing to Jade would fix any problems the eyes caused.
Not that he had noticed any problems so far. Lindon, it seemed, had been right that these Remnant eyes worked roughly the same as human ones. They glowed a soft white-pink and didn’t look natural, but Jaran had never cared what others thought about his appearance.
All in all, he had been correct to wait. He was glad to have eyes now, but his son was too impatient. Endurance and fortitude were the way. Lindon would learn that when he realized he’d ruined his own future advancement with his impatience.
Ribbons of green wind madra spiraled around the entire fleet of these foreigners, and Jaran leaned on his cane to get closer to his wife’s ear. “The Blackflame Empire, you said?”
She nodded absently. Her drudge bristled with sensors, and she checked some flashing scripts on its back, writing down some readings. Analyzing the patterns of the madra used for the display, no doubt.
“That’s supposed to be the Emperor and his entourage. Seeing this, I can believe it.”
“And how big is this Blackflame Empire?”
“Very,” Seisha said quietly.
Jaran didn’t give any external sign of how much that thought disturbed him. He wasn’t stupid. He had picked up Orthos’ stories, and heard others talking since leaving Sacred Valley. Even if you took out the parts that were obviously exaggeration, the Empire dwarfed Sacred Valley and the surrounding lands many times over.
“How advanced is he?” Jaran asked.
“Overlord.”
He frowned. “Overlord. That’s…”
“Yes, like Lindon,” she said, in a long-suffering tone that put him on edge. “I told you.”
“Can’t be that impressive,” he grumbled. Lindon was an Overlord, and he wasn’t even twenty yet. Either this Blackflame Emperor was only a child, or Lindon’s advancement was inflated.
Probably the second one. There was no way to advance…what was it, six stages? Six stages or so in only three or four years, without harming your own spirit. He had seen young warriors push up to Jade too quickly, before they were ready, and they were always weaker than their peers.
Suddenly a thousand golden stars burst from a cloud over their heads, and Jaran looked straight up in shock. A large, dark blue cloud hung over them, and he hadn’t given it much notice. It seemed everyone outside the Valley used Thousand-Mile Clouds for transportation, and there was nothing to attract his attention to this one compared to the Emperor’s fleet.
Nothing except, now, the golden stars that burst out and flew around the cloud in a complex web. It shone like a firework that never ended, like one of the festival displays that required all the Wei clan’s Jades to coordinate, and that was only the beginning.
Red light burst from the top of the cloud in a column that stretched toward the sky, a flash of crimson that outshone even the Empire’s celebration. After a few seconds, the vibrant beam burst, and a shower of crimson lights fell like needles down to the earth below.
Jaran’s body felt great pressure, as though this technique pushed on his muscles directly. He may not have been a Jade, but his hand still clenched on his cane as he sensed this attack.
The needles burst into harmless essence at once before they struck the treetops, red sparks fading into the sky.
A low whistle came from Seisha’s drudge, and she stared around her in shock. “That level of control…”
“They must have scripted it,” Jaran said, but without certainty. If Seisha was impressed, she had reason to be.
“That was controlled directly,” Seisha said. “And it was one person.”
Jaran stared at her, looking for signs of a joke. That technique had covered the sky and dwarfed the entire spectacle coming from the Blackflame Empire, and theirs was clearly the work of many sacred artists.