"Whoa… Is that another planet?"
"No, that looks like a moon. The one beside it is the planet which that moon is revolving around."
"I see, I see. And what is that, a star? It looks very shiny."
"Probably just another meteorite or space debris."
"Country bumpkin," Silver Wolf facepalmed and muttered under her breath, a little embarrassed by the behaviour displayed by her new friend and also newest colleague since she's half the reason why he's onboard with them now. Kafka was driving their spacecraft and Blade was surprisingly patient in answering each and every of Zind's query who looked like he had never seen the galaxy before, practically sticking himself to the window to look at the scenery outside in awe.
Oh wait, he really never went to space before.
"How do you guys not get lost in space? Everywhere looks the same to me."
"There's something called the GPS," Silver Wolf cannot help but snark back. Zind acted like he lacked the most basic common sense when it comes to intergalaxy travel and that is something which they should educate him about as soon as possible.
"A GPS that can work across the entire galaxy?"
"Duh."
"Seriously?"
"If anybody asked, I don't know him," Silver Wolf muttered and turned her head away with her arms crossed. Blade looked mildly amused at their interaction if the way his eyebrows were slightly raised were anything to go by. Kafka simply drove the spacecraft in silence while playing a classical instrumental violin piece through the speakers to fill in the silence.
"We are about to jump, so sit tight and fasten your seatbelts," Kafka helpfully reminded them with a smile and Silver Wolf watched as their newest member very obediently put on the seatbelts. Who on earth wears seatbelts during warp jumps these days?
"Huh, you guys are not putting on your seatbelts?" The merc finally realised that neither she nor Blade had even bothered to put on their seatbelts.
"If the warp jump fails, how would wearing a seatbelt save you? Kafka's just messing with you, bumpkin."
"The only thing you have to do during a jump is to sit tight and not move," Blade helpfully explained.
"Ah, and here I thought the two of you would play along for a little longer," Kafka said as her fingers deftly pressed the needed buttons to initiate a jump. "Alright, coordinates set. It might get a little bright so you might want to close your eyes. Jumping in three, two, one–"
The whirr of the engine got noticeably louder and their surroundings grew brighter and brighter. He saw how both Blade and Silver Wolf had closed their eyes while sitting on their seats and he quickly followed suit. He felt the slight displacement that happened a split second later and carefully opened his eyes when the light finally died down.
"Welcome to our hideout, Zind," Kafka said as she slowly guided the spacecraft into what seemed like a mini floating space station hidden within a debris belt. Silver Wolf could hear the whooooa from him and she idly wondered if she could turn back time and do something to prevent his inclusion into their ranks.
He is embarrassing her.
"A space garage. Wow… Are there other forms of space transport other than spacecraft?"
"Spacecrafts are one of the more commonly seen and used forms of transport, but there are also other more unique ones. A group of spacefaring folks known as the Nameless, for example, uses a train named Astral Express to travel through the cosmos," Kafka patiently explained while parking the spacecraft into the garage.
"A train? Do we have train tracks for them to cross the galaxy?"
"It's really just a super high-tech spacecraft that looks like a train," Silver Wolf quipped.
"We do not know for sure if there really are train tracks for the Astral Express to travel across the galaxy, but at the very least we had not seen the express travelling on physical railway tracks, if that's what you were asking," Kafka clarified. "However, it was also said that a thousand years ago, the Aeon Akivili which the Nameless worshipped had traversed across worlds, laying down the silver rail that linked worlds together in the sea of stars, so there might be railway tracks that the Astral Express uses to travel across worlds, just not in the physical sense."
"This whole Aeon thing is really quite bullshit if you ask me."
"Says so the one who uses an Aeon's power," Silver Wolf replied dryly. She had seen him fight and there's no doubt in her mind that he's a pathstrider too. It would be otherwise impossible for him to break through the enemy lines back at Area 99, even if he's equipped with a five star equipment.
"Hey, I don't even believe they existed until like a few hours ago. An old man once told me about this whole Aeon concept but I honestly believed that he was high on drugs or something. It sounded so ridiculous."
"Which path did you align with, if I may ask?" Kafka inquired as the door of the spacecraft opened with a silent hiss at the moment, signalling that they could all finally alight. Blade was the first to get out since he was the closest to the exit.
"According to the old man, it's the Preservation path. You heard anything about it?"
"Preservation… We don't have such a pathstrider in our midst yet. You are the first."
"You guys all have a path too?" Zind asked as the hunters started to alight from the spacecraft one after the other.
"Yeah we all do. We won't be capable of superhuman feats otherwise."
"So what's the difference between those paths? Does it make a difference if I am a Preservation and you are something else?" Zind asked and tried jumping off the ground the moment he alighted from the spacecraft, much to Silver Wolf's confusion.
"What are you doing?"
"Trying to see if I can float in space. You know, space, low gravity," Zind explained as he bounced off the ground a few times but he didn't float or make long leaps like he expected to.
"Because there's an artificial gravity field here to keep gravity relatively normal. Seriously, stop acting like a bumpkin already. This is embarrassing!" Silver Wolf covered her face with her hands and started screaming into it. "No, I should stop calling you bumpkin, but start calling you bumpking with a G at the end. King of all bumpkins."
"Well I'm sorry that I came from a primitive planet that doesn't even have a GPS! This is my first time in space, okay?"
"It's not good for your body if you live within a low gravity area for long periods of time. You will find that most space colonies would have their gravity maintained at approximately nine-point-five to ten metres per second squared through the use of an artificial gravity field, because that's the ideal gravity for most species to live in," Blade explained as he stopped and waited for his colleagues from where he was at the front. "Naturally, we would keep the gravity here at our hideout at approximately the same margin since this would be our living quarters until we have to move for whatever reasons."
"Come in," Kafka invited their newest member into their hideout. A nicely furnished house came into view, looking strangely homely and comfortable, which looked quite contrasting to the fact that they are a group of wanted criminals.
"Welcome to our humble abode. Not the biggest place, but it has everything we need," Silver Wolf said with a tinge of pride in her voice.
"Nice place. Best I've ever seen."
"Why, thank you," Kafka accepted the compliment and headed straight to the kitchen, opened the cabinet, and took out a bottle of fine red wine that she had conveniently swiped from a shelf during one of her previous missions. "So, I guess an official welcome is in order?"
Wine was poured and glasses clinked as the four Stellaron Hunters toasted to each other.
"So since we were talking about this Path thing earlier, what is it really?" Zind asked after drinking a few sips from his glass, feeling very curious about almost everything since everything seemed so new to him.
"To date, the nature of Paths remains a mystery, it's a philosophical concept that nobody has yet managed to fully comprehend or explain in a scientific manner," Blade answered. If Zind is to become a Stellaron Hunter it would be imperative to have him educated on the most basic knowledge that governed the cosmos. "But you can try imagining Paths as congregations of Imaginary energy, something born as manifestations of universal philosophical concepts. People who believe in and practise the concepts of a certain path become Pathstriders just as you and I, and it is also possible that the Path they follow to change in accordance to their philosophies and opinions somewhere down the line. In extreme cases, entities that manage to completely intertwine themselves with a Path and explore its philosophical concepts in its entirety will become an Aeon."
"So you mean… That it is theoretically possible that one of us sitting here could someday become an Aeon?"
"In theory, yes."
"And somebody succeeded before and became an Aeon?"
"The Aeon of Destruction, Nanook, supposedly rose to Aeonhood that way," Kafka informed while lightly swirling the contents in her glass. "If you are a Pathstrider of Preservation, then you must have philosophies that are aligned with the Aeon Qlipoth. Patience, sacrifice, and defensive behaviour; you must have believed and practised one or more of such philosophies to an extent where you successfully aligned yourself to this path."
"Sorry, Q… what po?"
"Qlipoth, also known as the Amber Lord. Their most notable followers are the Interastral Peace Corporation, also known as the IPC and the largest economic entity in the cosmos. The credit system that you are familiar with were actually created by them as well, just as almost all business transactions in the cosmos are based on that same credit system. That also meant that the IPC must have visited your planet at some point in time and left their influence there."
"Wait, so the credits that I had been using, are they a universally accepted currency?"
"Yes, they are."
"Great, I was worried if all the credit I had earned would become just a bunch of useless numbers after I went to space," Zind heaved a sigh of relief and Silver Wolf rolled her eyes at his money grubbing tendencies.
"There are also other benefits when one becomes a Pathstrider. As you should have already experienced, your body's natural capabilities and limits would be much higher than those who didn't align themselves with any Paths. Furthermore, we also tend to be able to draw on the power of a certain Type, although it's still a mystery if there's any set patterns or logics behind how a person attains the power of a Type just like how we align ourselves to a Path based on our beliefs."
"Sorry, you kind of lost me there. What do you mean by Type?"
"To put it in game terminology, Pathstriders can naturally draw on the power of a certain element. Like fire, ice, lightning, you know? Just that we don't call it that. We call it Type."
"I have such a power?"
"Well duh. You've been using it all along," Silver Wolf retorted. "How else do you think you created those shields and swords through your five star arm bracers?"
"Because that's… That's what it's created for? I bought it precisely because it could create energy constructs."
"Oh Aeon, this guy's a complete bumpking," Silver Wolf groaned and covered her face with her hands once more. She had been finding herself doing such an action much more frequently as of late.
"May I take a look at your equipment?" Kafka asked and Zind took off the one he wore over his left arm and handed it over to Kafka. Kafka inspected the equipment with a keen eye for a short while before wearing it over her own arm. To Zind's surprise, the energy construct that the arm bracers created were of a totally different design and colour when Kafka activated it.
"I see now, this arm bracer creates energy constructs by utilising Type energy, which means only a Pathstrider could use it to its full capabilities. You will have to channel Type energy into the bracer for it to work. Your Path is one of Preservation, which is probably why the default form your constructs took on was a shield and is probably the form in which it works best based on your Path. The Path I walk on is different, so mine will look very different from yours."
Kafka waved her created constructs about to emphasise her point, which took on the form of many purplish strings that extended from the bracer which she could manipulate at will.
"My Type is Lightning, which is why the colour of my constructs turned out to be purple. Yours should be Imaginary. Imaginary is often seen as the polar opposite to the Quantum Type which Silver Wolf happens to wield. Blade's is Wind and Sam's is Fire. It will do well for you to remember that because if we are able to mesh the corresponding Type energy in certain manners, interesting reactions can happen sometimes."
"Like how Sam's Fire and Blade's Wind can create the equivalent of a real-life purgatory. It's pretty cool to see it in action," Silver Wolf said. "My Quantum and your Imaginary tend to cancel each other out, you can think of it like an acid alkaline reaction, so we could possibly create some cool combos from it too. We will have to try and see."
"What even is Imaginary?"
"That's the thing, nobody understands. People just know that they exist and what each Type is strong and weak against, and that it's possible to create cool combos by combining different types together. Just know that your Type is Imaginary and leave it at that. The Quantum and Imaginary Type are the least understood Types among the known ones."
"Information overload," Zind groaned and he took his arm bracer back when Kafka passed it back to him. "So I have magical power all along? But nobody can explain what this power is?"
"Just deal with it. Just take it as the devs who created this world being too lazy to explain their game mechanics and that they want us to figure out the whole thing ourselves."
"Just accept it as a normal occurrence of the universe, like how you need to breathe to live. There's no need to delve too deep into it if you are not in the academic field," Blade suggested. "That said, your control over your Type energy is still too crude. You have a lot of room for refinement. We can start teaching you how to control Type energy starting tomorrow, it will help in increasing your combat prowess even further."
"Yeah Blade is quite a good teacher. Just go all out with him," Silver Wolf said while blowing on her bubblegum. "Trust me, better Blade than Kafka, she will beat you within an inch of your life."
"You shouldn't have told him that. I wanted to keep it a surprise."
"At least I didn't tell him anything about Sam."
"Because Sam wouldn't hesitate to kill me?"
"I didn't say that. I'm not going to say anything about Sam so that you will toss and turn in bed all night thinking if Sam's the benevolent hand-holding type or the make you learn the hard way kind of teacher."
"Silver Wolf, I thought we were friends."
"We are? Why am I not aware?"