In the City of a Billion Sages on the world known as First Heaven in the Starhold of Infinitely Blazing Existence– a thousand thousand conceptualists awoke to find themselves in total peace.
Across the expansive conurbation that covered an entire hemisphere, reality and its component Conceptual Principles regained a stable, orderly state.
Across the world, Way Energy was returning to its natural form – divided, diluted, and distributed back to the formless and ever-present Concept Potential.
Across the star system, Hyper Conceptual computers began operating more efficiently and expediently, the comprehension-defying drain on their energy resolved.
–
In the Golden Palace of The Mountain of Silver and Sable above the City of a Billion Sages on the world called First Heaven–an Imperial elder shrieked.
Across the Palace, servants withered to lifeless ash and scattered dust under the weight of his ire and Conceptual fury.
Across the City, conceptualists fell in droves from the barest touches of his enraged mind, seemingly unwounded, but damaged beyond understanding.
Across the world, hordes were driven to disorientation and disarray by the whispers of the passing shadows of his rage.
–
In the highest loft of the Central Tower in the Golden Palace of the Mountain of Silver and Sable above the City of a Billion Sages– a bed lay empty.
Across the canopied bed, –a behemoth of comfort and Distilled Cloud spanning several fathoms– , emptiness was the only master.
Across the room, scribbled not onto paper but reality itself, a perfunctory note floated, written hastily, yes, yet graceful and profound all the same.
Across the Palace, the strongest conceptualist servants scrambled in frenzied search, reeling from their brush with True Conceptual power, but desperate to serve and desperate to please
–
In a ship called the flower mist – a ship larger than most moons, far from any city and far from any world– A Conceptually Divine entity was keeled over and vomiting out a cask's load of alcohol.
Across the floor did it spread.
Across his hands and hair did it splatter.
Across the room, there was laughter.
–
The Divinity cared not for the City nor the Palace. His cares were wiping the vomit from his hands and drowning the bitter taste of bile with the bitter taste of home-brewed rice wine.
His opponent did not care about his cares. She did, however, care about the vomit he had left on her shoes.
"You're fucked now, Farborn," screamed an enthusiastic onlooker.
The drunken young man tried to stagger to his feet, succeeding only in providing his attacker a proper target. A diamond-studded boot found his stomach, his jaw, and the back of his head.
The taste of blood was a welcome substitute to the previous acridity.
Farborn, the drunk, rolled over to look up at the woman towering over him.
Her hair was flaxen, her skin was an odd red, her eyes were yellow and furiously scowled. Her face was beautiful otherwise, but the way she was looming over Farborn did not leave him with much room to appreciate her well-sculpted lips and artist's hands.
In fact, those very hands were curled into fists, and that, coupled with her muscular build, made her a rather terrifying sight to look upon.
The sight was made even more frightening by the fact that there were four of her.
Farborn found that shaking his head and blinking his eyes cut that number in half. But still one too many.
"You should not have disrespected me, kid." She gruffly threatened.
Spitting out a deeply pink globule of spittle, Farborn spoke. "My apologies, Rovin. I just thought you had to know, being a lady and all."
His last words earned him another kick, one he responded to with a half-mad chuckle.
Rovin hesitated, and the young man used the opportunity to jump onto his feet.
His Mortal-grade body made the movement seem graceless and sluggish. Or was that the alcohol?
It did not matter, he was up, and he would fight. He raised his fists and smiled, the red-stained teeth making for an unsettling view.
"Great Emperor, you're stupid, boy," sniggered an onlooker, likely the same one as earlier.
"Are you Central guys all this dumb?" Rovin asked. "Let this senior advise you, you're a Mortal grade conceptualist, kid, I could splatter you across the wall with half a thought. Just get on your knees and stay quiet. Kowtow to your grandmaster and all will be forgiven."
With another mad chuckle, Farborn responded. "Senior can forgive this junior for ignoring her advice to stay quiet. But I do hope to take you up on the offer to get on my knees sometime in the future, preferably without an audience, but if you need one, I would be—"
The crack his skull made against the concrete floor drowned out the last of his words.
To a mortal observer, it would have seemed as though he had risen to the air and fallen beneath some invisible weight. A conceptualist observer would have seen thick tendrils of Conceptual Wind and Fire guiding the Corporeal air around him and slamming him down beneath the weight of the hall's condensed air pressure.
A normal human would have been crushed beneath that weight, but a Mortal grade conceptualist was mortal only by name. Between them and the average human, was a wide breadth of difference.
And so Farborn did not die, but merely fell into unconsciousness.
****
When Farborn awoke, he was being carried between a pair of men drunker than he. The three of them swayed side to side as the drunken men silently deliberated the proper way to collapse forward.
Farborn let himself be carried.
The swaying of the men was comforting to his thundering headache, and they likely would not fall anytime soon. Not because the men's balance was superb, but because Farborn was certain Heaven would not be so cruel as to give him a second concussion before the first had resolved itself.
Farborn shut his eyes, and when he opened them again, he was leaning onto his cabin door. His two drunken chaperones were nowhere to be seen, likely having fallen onto opposing ends of some hallway, each sure of their proficiency in the art of intoxicated bumbling.
An art that Farborn was gaining more and more experience in.
Dejectedly, he slid aside the door and staggered into his simple cabin.
A bed, a rucksack, and an unadorned side table. These are all the things that were in the room.
The entire wall opposite the door was a window, but its shutters were shut so there was no view of the half-moon's artificial night.
Farborn threw himself onto the bed and regretted it instantly when his head throbbed in protest of its maltreatment. Whilst waiting for the waves of nauseating pain to subside, Farborn fiddled with the coin tied to his wrist.
It was half again the length of his thumb, made of pure gold, and was tied to Farborn's wrist with leather cured from two ten-thousand-year-old conceptualists. On the coin's surface, runes were inscribed with Emperor-grade Conceptual Force. The leather had been refined several grades further than should have been possible, but the runework kept it from dissipating into Concept Potential.
Half a dozen neutron stars had been ripped apart to be condensed into the immensely heavy gold. A Sage and a Divine Teacher had offered their physical forms to cure the profoundly devoid leather. All the materials had been tempered in the core of a young star and drenched in the ancient oceans of the First World.
It was a Seal that could bind even gods. And that was precisely what it was doing.
Several minutes of idle movement was enough to summon sleep, and Farborn's eyes closed.
An hour or so after that, brilliant light brightened his eyelids. It was too early for the half-moon's artificial sunrise, so the illumination was not that.
Farborn opened his eyes again and was nearly blinded by that mere second of visual contact.
That brief second, however, allowed him to spy the vaguely humanoid shape sitting on the edge of his bed.
The shape was woven from light and regal energy, and produced feelings of awe and panicked religiosity.
Words like 'venerable', 'brilliant', and 'illuminating' could barely capture the entity. For Farborn, the word 'uncle' came to mind. And so, with his hand raised to shield his vision, he said it.
Immediately, the light dimmed, and Farborn lowered his hand.
"Isn't 'Farborn' a bit on the nose?" His uncle asked, grinning.
His uncle's smile was brilliant. His white teeth worked well with his glowing golden skin. His curly blue hair did not. His uncle heard that thought and cocked his head to one side. His hair burst into flame, and did itself become a blazing orange fire.
"Does that work better, 'Farborn'?" his uncle asked snarkily.
Farborn tapped the coin on his wrist and said, "I forget that I've fallen to Mortal grade."
"I know," his uncle said, beaming with joy, "It's refreshing seeing the depths of your mind, nephew; there's no need to lock me out with that Seal of yours."
Farborn shrugged, "I turn off some functions when I sleep. There are no Emperors on the Flower Mist , so I saw no need for the mental protections. I thank you for reminding me to stay vigilant."
Tian Wei made a seated bow to his nephew. "This uncle is pleased to have guided nephew."
"Is that all you have come for uncle, to peruse the mind of a vulnerable young man? I did not take you for a pervert."
Tian Wei's chuckle was booming. "No, no, that wasn't all that this old uncle came for," he attempted to change his expression to one of seriousness. He tried and failed dismally.
"They've found out you left. Elder Jian came to the Jade Palace a day or so ago bearing the news. The Great Jade Emperor has summoned all the descendants of the main line back to Central and sent out his hounds to search their worlds." He paused, and then finally succeeded in finding a shred of seriousness. "I have never seen His Imperial Person so furious. He has sent out the Jade Demon Guard, the Seven Shining Dinities, and the Supreme Fore-Kings. He wants you back or the head of every single acquaintance and passing stranger of the one who killed you."
"What does this mean, uncle?" Farborn said, leaping to his feet.
"While I am still willing to shelter you, my own worlds will soon be searched." Tian Wei sighed. "Nephew, this uncle has been forced to divert your ship. I apologise, but it is no longer possible for this uncle to directly shield you."
Farborn sat down slowly. "I understand, uncle."
"You do, don't you?" Tian Wei said, smiling wryly, "Of course you do, that is why I agreed to this mad escape of yours. His Imperial Person has turned a child into a calculating animal."
"Uncle, I–"
"Say nothing, nephew. This uncle does not say this to shame you, but rather your Imperial Father, may He forgive my blasphemy."
"I understand, Uncle. The decision shows your wisdom and foresight." Farborn bowed slightly, "So where have I been sent off to?" he asked.
Tian Wei ran his hands through the ring of fire that served as his hair.
"A lower world. Far out to the edges of the galaxy, directly across the galaxy to be exact. It's a young world, seeded only three or four dozen millenia ago. An old friend of mine founded a small sect there and lives in relative isolation. If you hide there, it will be several divine lifetimes before you are even imagined to still be alive."
"A lower world, uncle?" Farborn said petulantly.
"Yes, a lower world, nephew." Tian Wei said, smiling, "Your Imperial Father keeps more than a few for his personal use. And I've found the simple life to be a great deal of relief from the screaming wives and scheming descendants." Tian Wei idly rolled a small blue-green bead before adding, "Yes, I think it would be the best for you, nephew."
Farborn scowled as he thought. "The captain might be unwilling to divert course. The Astraji are not easily swayed by Imperial might, and she may just push ahead to your Starhold."
"I am not simple, Farborn. I have been haggling with the captain, from the time you were unconscious and even as you and I speak now, under the guise of a merchant from the Jaitar Commerce Guild seeking to poach her wares. I will offer her a chance to stop at the lower world under the pretext of a minor malfunction in the navigational array. You will quietly land on the world, and that will be that."
Farborn bowed. "Uncle's calculating is far beyond mine."
"Your flattery is getting worse and worse, nephew." His focus wavered for an instant, "I am now leaving the lower world, and the sect Master has agreed to shelter you. Now, just remember to stay unknown whilst you are on the lower world, this uncle understands that the lower world has several, if minor, connections to the rest of the Empire, and any inkling of you would draw the Jade Demon Guard like the dogs they are."
Farborn smiled sheepishly, "Does uncle think me a fool?"
"No." Tian Wei said. "I think you are young, and I have come to find they are much the same thing." He stood abruptly. "Now then, as much as I value your company, nephew 'Farborn', I can tarry no longer. I can feel your Imperial Father searching for my attention. I'm afraid this will be our final contact for some time."
Farborn stood and spontaneously decided to embrace his uncle. Tian Wei appeared confused, awkwardly patting his nephew's back. When he finally broke contact, Farborn's fists were clenched, and moisture was evident in his eyes.
"Oh, nephew. I truly wish it were not so. This foolish uncle blames only himself for this disappointment." He bowed deeply.
"No, uncle," Farborn intoned, "you have done more than should ever have been asked by this nephew." His voice hitched in pain.
"Nephew, this uncle only did what he knew to be right, and once your father would have known me to be correct." He drifted off in a reverie before pulling his attention back to Farborn. He patted Farborn's shoulder awkwardly. "Open your mind and let me send what little knowledge this ignorant uncle has of that world."
Farborn released a patch on the Seal and immediately collapsed. Within his mind there was a blazing tornado of information scourging out a location for itself. His body twitched once as understanding and memories beyond counting flooded into him. His body flickered golden once, twice, and a final time before the process was finished.
"Ah, sorry. I sent more information than you could handle. I forget you are now only Mortal. Be sure to fix that soon, by the way, we can't have some errant Saint swatting you out of reality." He helped Farborn to his feet, and then patted him awkwardly once more.
Before the awkwardness could go on further, Tian Wei clapped his hands and said, "Well then, nephew, I suppose I must not keep your father any longer. Watch your eyes."
In an illuminating flash of light and energy, Tian Wei disappeared.
Farborn barely managed to cover his eyes in time.
For a number of breaths, he silently watched the spot his uncle had vanished from. There, a fathom-long gash in reality remained, barely visible to the human eye, but glaringly obvious to any conceptualist.
Farborn spent an hour observing the smear left by the profound weight of his uncle's Conceptual Force, and only when it blinked out did he drop to the floor.
He screamed in agony and gingerly unwrapped his fingers. Through them, one could see a small golden light. The very same light he had stolen from his uncle's burning hair during his impromptu embrace. He began observing the light.
It had the look of fire, but warped in a way fire could never be. It had a blazing warmth and brilliant brightness, expanding outward in an infinitely limiting Seal.
It was Positive Conceptual Energy.
A piece of Farborn's mind supplied that on the lower world he was headed to, they still used the archaic word 'Yang' to refer to what he held in his hands.
Whatever one called it, it was pure, pure as it could ever be in the Corporeal plane. Of course, it was pure. Farborn's Emperor-Rank uncle had refined it into Corporeal form. But that was precisely the problem. In his refinement process, Tian Wei had left his mark all over the yang flame, and with Farborn's currently sealed skills, it would take him months to remove an Emperor-grade Conceptual Brand.
Farborn sighed. He absorbed the Positive Conceptual Energy into his fledgeling Conceptual Inner Space, using some mental chains from his Seal to affix it in place.
He looked at his right hand, the hand that had held the yang, and saw a golden circle it had left on his palm. He circulated a wisp of all the Concept Potential he could muster and dimmed the glow somewhat. Satisfied, and thinking about the journey he was soon about to embark upon, he fell asleep.
*****
He awoke hours later, with horizontal beams of light filling the room. Just at the furthest edge of his hearing did he hear an announcement by the half-moon's communication network.
The ship would be diverting course. Converting all engines to a single spatial movement to a location a hundred light-years away.
A two year long trip from one side to another.
All spent in the null of Inner Space. Two years by relativistic time, and four by Imperial Constant.
As he heard the last part, he sighed.
Two more years with the crew of the Flower Mistmeant that Farborn needed to improve his standing amongst them.
'It seems I need to drop the useless drunk act,' Farborn thought to himself, 'It would have worked for a two-month trip to Uncle Wei's Starhold, but over two years it will only earn me enmity with the crew.'
The personality was one he had concocted to hide his movements. When the crew saw him, they did not imagine his Imperial background; instead, they saw a drunk. It was a graceless and dishonourable disguise, but when one was being pursued by The Great Jade Emperor, he could not afford honour and grace.
He found himself oddly emotional. The personality was only a cover, but it had allowed him to be someone truly different from who he had been expected to be his whole life.
Farborn the Drunk was the son of some minor planetary steward. Farborn the drunk had no galactic concerns. He was an untalented conceptualist, a lecher, and a drunk, and that was all he needed to be.
Nonetheless, Farborn quickly discarded the personality and mourned its passing silently. Then he slowly and carefully began processing the memories his uncle had supplied him with. Cross-legged beside his bed, he viewed each memory.
Conceptual Bio-chemy and Techno-artificing memories were redundant, so he left them mostly untouched. Farborn had studied these arts more closely than his uncle ever had. But Tian Wei's long experience would serve well to supplement Farborn's primarily theoretical knowledge, so he kept more than a few memories for later study.
The martial arts memories he outright discarded. Farborn had an impeccable understanding of Martial Principles in his own right. His Mortal-grade body, however, could barely handle most of them, so he would likely need to spend the coming two years tweaking what he could to compliment a less powerful physical form.
It seemed his uncle was correct, when Farborn landed on the lower world, he needed to begin advancing his physical body and unsealing his comprehension of Conceptual Principles. It would not do to remain so weak.
For four hours, he sat and organised the memories he had been supplied with.
He learned that the world was called The Blue-Green Star. The sect he had been sent to was the Lone Mountain Heavenly Sect.
The most shocking revelation was learning that on that world, they did not possess Conceptual Computers. On the world of the Blue-Green Star, humans still scoured the mysteries of Conceptual Principle through paths, arts, and skills. They grew through personal Conceptual expansion, which they referred to as cultivation.
Truly a primitive world.
He smiled when he thought about the rest of his life on such a simple world. Perhaps he could take up farming. Or perhaps he would become an artist or calligrapher, imbuing his works with his own Comprehensions of The Principles. On such a low world, just the barest hints of his True Understanding would be world-altering. Considering the fact that he was currently being hunted by Heaven's greatest hunters, it would not do to be too obtrusive.
So no, he would not be a calligrapher. Farming, then.
But ultimately, it did not matter.
Much of Farborn's power was sealed, but his body had already been tempered by the Creation Flame.
Even if he lived the rest of his life as a lowly Mortal Grade, the rest of his life would still be several Universal Phases long. He could be a farmer for a few centuries and an artist afterwards for however long he desired.
His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door.
By force of habit he tried to expand his Spirit Sense, and that action ended in an uncomfortable spike of pain just above his navel. He did not have Spirit Sense because he had not developed a full Spiritual Conceptual Inner Space. He was only Mortal-grade, and he could not afford to forget that.
He stood up and stretched the tension from his muscles. He composed himself just as he reached the door.
He was met with the unexpected sight of Rovin. She sneered at the unkempt sight of him.
"The captain has bid me to inform you that the ship will be making a spatial movement that will derail our original path. She's asked me to ask if you will be departing with the other passengers who are off to Uridon station."
Farborn shook his head. "Tell the captain that I am willing to stay on the ship, and that I am pleased she had the courtesy to provide me with alternative passage."
She nodded curtly and turned to leave.
Farborn called out to her. "I wish to apologise for my past behaviour, Senior Rovin. Would you mind a drink sometime later, in the hall?"
Rovin looked at him suspiciously, "Did I finally knock some sense into you last night?"
"I suspect you might have." Farborn said sheepishly.
"Well let's not make it a habit, kid." She paused. "Tonight. The hall. You can apologise then."
Farborn nodded and bowed lightly.
She left looking somewhat suspicious, but Farborn was still satisfied. For two years Farborn would be aboard their half-moon ship, and he was intent on living without the crew's enmity.
He shut the door to his room and returned to his meditation. Slowly and Carefully, he began unsealing the pure yang in his fledgeling Conceptual Inner Space, or Spirit Sea as they referred to it on the Blue-Green Star.
It would take him two or so years to remove his uncle's Conceptual Brand on the Positive Conceptual Energy. And it would not hurt to begin as soon as possible.
After several hours, he felt the ship begin moving. It was not a simple directional movement in the Corporeal, but rather a movement through Conceptual space. It was a profound warping and distortion of space-time. They were underway, and Farborn was moving towards the Blue-Green Star and the Lone Mountain Heavenly Sect.
His Imperial Highness, The Heavenly Jade Prince, shut his eyes and began processing pure yang.