"One Contribution Point or five Hunter Cores."
Kyle stopped moving as he suddenly heard a voice in his head.
He looked around but couldn't see anyone else. "Eh, what?"
Kyle could feel some annoyance in the atmosphere around him, which was weird.
He hadn't heard anything else, and he didn't see the other person.
So, how could he feel that they were annoyed?
"Did the person who brought you here not tell you that this planet belongs to someone already?" the person spoke in Kyle's mind.
"Nobody brought me here," Kyle answered. "I came by myself."
Silence.
"You came by yourself," the person repeated in a tone that made it seem like they didn't believe Kyle. "From where?"
"From there," Kyle said, pointing at the big planet with the base on it.
Silence.
The next moment, a half-wolf, half-human thing appeared in front of Kyle.
Based on the thin waist and the… breasts… Kyle could tell that this was most likely a woman.
The Ether gathering around her was extremely dense, and just like with some of the beings in the big portal room, the Ether around her was moving in a very mechanical way.
It didn't feel natural.
"You're a Transcendent," she said matter-of-factly. "Not many of those can leave Orchis."
'Guess Orchis is the name of the planet with the base,' Kyle thought.
"Why not?" Kyle asked with a shrug. "You just keep moving upwards until the gravity gets weaker."
The wolf-woman furrowed her brows.
"What kind of Law did you use to accomplish that?" she asked.
"Hey, I'm new here," Kyle said. "I'm not sure if it's a good idea to share my Laws with someone else. Feels like telling someone what's in my bank account."
"I didn't ask you for your specific Law," she said with annoyance. "I asked what kind of Law it is. Didn't they tell you that during Initiation?"
Kyle blinked a couple of times. "Initiation?"
The wolf-woman furrowed her brows. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚
At the same time, Kyle felt the wolf-woman's Ether washing over his body.
"You're not part of the Cult," she commented.
"Honestly, I have no idea if I am part of the Cult or not at this point," Kyle said with some annoyance. "I was brought here because an old friend of mine recruited me, but as soon as someone took a closer look at me, they just told me to walk out the door."
"I have no fucking idea about my current status. Am I part of the Cult? Am I not? Nobody of importance actually clarified that to me! I just met three random guys on the street who told me that I could come to this planet to comprehend Laws as long as I had payment."
The wolf-woman looked at Kyle with an evaluating gaze. "You have a True Sin Aura."
"No shit," Kyle said. "Everyone here has one. Well, almost. The other new recruits didn't have one."
"Were you a victim of the Array of Stars?" she asked.
"They hired me as an Overseer, and yeah, I did what they asked me to do," Kyle said with annoyance. "How come everyone keeps asking me that? Does that happen regularly?"
"I see," she said with furrowed brows. "Am I right in assuming that you advanced with a Complex Level One Law?"
"Yep," Kyle answered.
"That explains things," she said. "Leaving Orchis is usually impossible for Transcendents without a movement-related Level Two Law."
"What? Why?" Kyle asked.
"Gravity and regeneration," she explained. "Moving upwards, even very slowly, consumes more Energy than they regenerate."
"But if you managed to break through with a Complex Level One Law, your Core Spark decreases Energy usage and increases Energy recovery for the kind of Energy you use."
"Ether, right?" Kyle asked.
"Excuse me?" she asked with a raised brow.
"You keep saying Energy. You mean Ether, right?" Kyle asked.
"Energy and Ether are the same thing," she said. "Tertiary and sometimes Secondary Worlds have their own words for Energy. Mana, Ether, Qi, and so on."
"In the Supreme World, we call it Energy, because that's the best description for what it does."
"Okay," Kyle said.
'Fuck you, I'll keep calling it Ether!'
"So, what's all this about?" Kyle asked. "Am I part of the Cult or not?"
"No, you're not," the wolf-woman said.

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