"Are you guys alright?"
"Yes, hiding ourselves from perception requires no effort on our part and we can sustain it indefinitely," Larkin answered. Tanya stood and huddled by her father's side. "But, Satoru; how long will we be confined in this xeno planet? Their food is... acceptable, but every second we spend here brings us further and further away from the God Emperor's light."
"Dude, calm down." Satoru tapped his hand on the weird crown thing the Aeldari gave him, which he almost never wore, because it made him feel ridiculous and also because it kind of looked like a peacock tail, which was just... not his thing. He'd wear it in a fight, though, since Caoimhe told him it'd defend his brain from psychic attacks. It'd be extra protection, in case Infinity failed him. "I have no idea, okay? I've been here for, like, three days now and I'm just making shit up as I go along. Just stick close to me, okay? That way, you'll know when we can get the fuck out of this place. Until then, keep on hiding; I'll leave food in my room."
Well, room was a good way to undersell the freaking palace the Aeldari gave him. Once the whole Craftworld decided that he was, in fact, this Britheim figure, come to bring them salvation, the hot space elves wasted no time in trying to win his good graces, offering him just about anything he wanted – with some offering themselves up to him. Satoru wasn't sure what the last bit meant, but he turned them down, even after fixing up their souls. It was a difficult choice, of course, because goddamn these Aeldari were smoking hot. But, he said no.
Why?
Well, firstly, it felt like taking advantage of a bunch of desperate people, similar to coercion, but with religious undertones. He didn't like it. Sex was supposed to be earned; the act itself was great, but the journey there was a big part of what made it great. If it was too easy or given too freely, then Satoru found himself uninterested. Secondly, he had his sights on Caoimhe and he was not about to turn away from the challenge of getting in bed with her. Plus, the Farseer was hotter than most of them for some odd reason and... far more powerful. That was the most important part. She came close enough to actually injuring him, back on the ship, and – ever since he removed the mark on her soul – her Cursed Energy output had increased to extreme levels. So, why did this matter?
Well, because powerful women make stick hard.
And also because he'd didn't feel necessarily stronger or greater than her. Sure, even with her full potential, Satoru could still kill her if he really wanted to, but they were close enough in magnitude that he could spend time around Caoimhe and not feel alone, which was a pretty big plus in his book. Though, he honestly wasn't sure where he was going with this one.
Once he was settled in his new alien palace, Caoimhe left to convene with the other Farseers. It'd take a while, she told him, and so he'd been spending his time here, in his palace, reading up on their Sorcery Books, or occasionally walking around the immediate surroundings, together with the Aeldari Warriors who'd sworn their service to him, who were now acting like a bunch of henchmen; they called themselves the Guardians of the One, which was honestly really cool.
And they walked around with him wherever he went, unless he asked them specifically not to. It was pretty cool.
They even accompanied him in the library, where Satoru spent most of his time. Aeldari Sorcery was... honestly pretty amazing. They came up with stuff that not even the greatest Sorcerers in his time – in his world – came up with. Sure, before Satoru came along and started removing the mark of the Thirsty Bitch from their souls, they were unable to make use of most what they had, in fear of getting their souls ripped from their bodies and eaten. Things were different now. Unfortunately, most of their spell-work could only be used by Aeldari, which was expected. Their rituals, however, were definitely up for grabs and so Satoru focused on those.
He would be lying if he said that, without Six-Eyes, he would not have understood any of it. Their rituals were complicated beyond anything he'd ever seen before, but also incredibly efficient, despite the complexity. One of their most basic ritual circles, which required only the users blood, was meant to turn Neutral Cursed Energy into Positive Cursed Energy through an ingenious siphoning method of some sort. Of course, the volume of energy it could absorb and convert was limited, but the mere fact that it existed at all was incredible. The book stated that the Aeldari used this particular circle to clean up 'corrupted' places.
Satoru learned to replicate it after a whole day of practice. After that, using Six-Eyes, he figured out how to alter and improve it. For instance, he was able to alter it to do the opposite, siphoning Positive Cursed Energy and turning into Neutral Cursed Energy – or True Negative Cursed Energy. Of course, he didn't test either alteration, since the Aeldari were highly sensitive to such things and Satoru hadn't been looking for trouble. It was... an interesting thing to add to his arsenal – all things considered.
The second thing he started learning about, which he hadn't mastered yet, was a ritual circle that transmuted matter from one form into another – alchemy, basically. Oh, he figured out the basics, since it wasn't exactly complicated; no, the hard part was that there wasn't exactly a list of alchemical symbols that detailed every single piece of matter that existed. And, in ritual circles, symbolism was everything. So, for now, he could turn a pebble into a perfect diamond and back again, and a bunch of other materials whose symbols were recorded. But Satoru wouldn't call any of it true mastery.
Still, another interesting thing to learn. After all, this was the second ritual out of hundreds, one book out of thousands.
There was a park and a theater, right outside his palace, where a bunch of weirdo clowns, who called themselves the Harlequins, performed a bunch of plays that the Aeldari really seemed to enjoy. Satoru watched them for a bit, but it really wasn't for him. They steered clear of him, however, unlike the rest of their brethren, and Satoru never quite figured out why that was. He didn't care though, since they kept their distance and didn't bother him; whatever their deal was, it didn't involve him, anyway.
Of course, there were always a few hundred people lining up to get their souls fixed. And, seeing as they pretty much worshiped him as their hot new messiah, Satoru couldn't say no. He also didn't want to. Helping people, even if they were aliens, felt pretty good. Being appreciated was actually quite nice.
In that time, he'd figured out where the Shrine of Khaine was and what it looked like.
And holy shit did it exude a fuckton of malevolent Cursed Energy of the Positive kind.
Yeah, the whole concept of it was insane, but Six-Eyes did not lie and it could not be lied to. The Shrine of Khaine emitted Malevolent Positive Cursed Energy. How that worked on a mechanical level boggled his mind, because something like that shouldn't exist. He couldn't enter, however, even after asking politely. Because, apparently, only the chosen were allowed to go inside to become one with their god.
Though his curiosity was strong, Satoru held himself back. Besides, just knowing the Shrine of Khain's location was a pretty big step forward. And, he had a feeling he'd soon find out just why he wasn't allowed inside. Not that Satoru actually gave a shit.
"I understand." Larkin nodded and shook his head. "We'll keep ourselves hidden until the time is right. Thank you for the food, Satoru."
"Don't mention it, dude." Satoru smiled. "Now, do that invisibility trick of yours before-"
Larkin disappeared and Satoru forgot he was ever there. Or, at least, he forgot for a total of three seconds, before he shook his head and remembered. Sheesh, that was a really good trick, honestly. Probably the most powerful evasive Cursed Technique he'd ever seen in his entire life; turning invisible was one thing, but extending that effect to make people forget you was an entirely different ball game. Holy shit.
Satoru shook his head and turned his attention back to the book in front of him. The object of his fascination now was something called God-Forging, apparently done by the ancestors of the Aeldari to create impossibly powerful constructs that were made entirely of Cursed Energy, within the Cursed Realm itself. How they did such a thing was a whole fucking mystery, because even the Aeldari weren't sure. The book wasn't heavy on the details, unfortunately, because it'd been written many millions of years after the fact. What truly caught Satoru's attention was its weird similarity to Bonesinging, the Aeldari art of singing Wraithbone into existence and giving it shape.
It was a Psycho-Reactive Material that was made almost entirely of Positive Cursed Energy. And his goal was, quite simply, to learn it for himself. Because it wasn't an Innate Cursed Technique, like their sorcery was. Any Aeldari could learn to do it if they were talented enough and practiced enough. And, therefore, he, Gojo Satoru, the hottest piece of ass in the entire galaxy, could also do it. Unfortunately, the manuals made no fucking sense. Singing was a crucial component and, after some analysis with Six-Eyes, Satoru found that the singing portion was simply a way to impart emotion into pure Cursed Energy and turning that energy into a solid, physical mass; the solidifying and shaping part eluded him.
Asking the Aeldari also proved fruitless as, by their own words, the Way of Bonesinging came naturally to those with the aptitude for it, which was a fancy way of saying they had no idea how it fucking worked – or, at least, they didn't fully understand the mechanics behind it. Unfortunate, but not unexpected. Caoimhe did say that her people had forgotten and abandoned many of the practices and knowledge that once made them the most dominant race in the entire galaxy.
And so, when a book started talking about ancients making constructs in the warp, Satoru had hoped for a clue. Because, the two practices couldn't be too far off from each other, right?
He found jackshit. None of it made sense. It didn't even try to make sense.
Satoru sighed and closed the book. He then raised his right hand gathered a sizable chunk of pure Cursed Energy, which he then condensed into the shape of a ball. This... this was pure energy. Check. Now, how does one turn pure energy into matter? Satoru had observed a Construction user performing their technique – Mai Zenin – and found it rather simple, even if it was extremely inefficient. The science behind it was sound; energy to matter and matter to energy conversion was perfectly possible within the realm of physics. Theoretically, one could do the same using Cursed Energy, just condense it enough to force free-flowing subatomic particles to fuse together into atoms and atoms into molecules.
There were two problems with that, however. The first problem was that it would require an ungodly amount of Cursed Energy, more than he had. Satoru could spend every ounce of Cursed Energy in his body and that'd probably be just enough to create a 1x1 inch of solid matter, which was just stupidly inefficient.
The Cursed Technique: Construct, bypassed this, somewhat, by hijacking the required process to create matter and automating the joining of atoms into molecules, instead of forcing the user to start from the ground up. This cut down the energy requirement by about 98%, which was still horribly inefficient.
And, since Satoru did not possess that Innate Technique, he'd be forced to manually press the sub-atomic particles and atoms together by himself. The only way he could make anything larger than a grape was if he had access to an unlimited amount of Cursed Energy. And, even then, whatever he'd create wouldn't be anywhere close to Wraithbone; it'd just be another physical object.
So, no, that option was out.
Bonesinging very likely used similar, but entirely different mechanics to function, since it produced Wraithbone, not a random piece of matter.
"Tsk... this is getting me nowhere," Satoru sighed, closed the book and stood up. This whole Bonesinging thing was stressing him out. Maybe, he could turn his attention back to the ritual circles; at least, those things didn't give him a headache.
As he moved to grab another book, however, Satoru felt a familiar presence approaching. And, not a moment later, Caoimhe walked through the door. She looked stressed, honestly, eyes dark and heavy. Still, this only seemed to make her hotter, which was a weird thing to think about. Her long, red hair flashed like fire and her emerald eyes almost seemed to shimmer in the faint light. Or, ya know, they might've just been glowing outright on account of her leaking excess Cursed Energy everywhere. "Lord Gojo."
"Yeah?" Satoru positioned himself by the window so that the light hit him perfectly, illuminating his otherworldly beautiful features. He smirked right at her, Six-Eyes glimmering like infinite oceans.
Oh yeah. This shit always worked.
Caoimhe seemed stunned for a moment, before she looked away and cleared her throat. Despite that, her eyes lingered. Jackpot. "The Farseer Council has gathered. They would like to meet with you to discuss... err... certain things."