Coming into the village Mathias saw a strange assortment of buildings he suspected to be their places of residence.
Walking down the dirt path a certain person came into view, standing with long dark hair and brownish-black eyes, he in looked Mathias' direction.
Mathias then approached him with a courteous nod, "You must be a gardener." he said to him.
His eyes looked shock before apprehensively saying, "I'm sorry, I don't know what you're talking about."
Now I was confused, didn't that other guy say the word 'planter' to describe sorcerers here? Mathias thought.
"You know, a sorcerer, a wizard, a sage, a warlock maybe? A user of magic, practitioner of the aetherous arts?" Mathias said, using every word in his expansive vocabulary.
"Do you mean a cultivator, young master?" He asked Mathias, with a small smile on his face.
"Yes! That's the one!" I exclaimed.
He then smirked gently, like he couldn't believe someone could mess up a word so ingrained in society.
"Well anyways, I have a few things that a cultivator of your caliber could use." Mathias said, trying to sell to him.
His tone immediately went dark, "My caliber? That's quite presumptuous of you junior."
J-junior? I uh, don't know how to feel about that, Mathias contemplated.
His face went into contemplation trying to figure out exactly how much he was insulted.
"I see that young master does not normally come face to face with other young masters but as you see as the youngest son of the Hua Tai clan I have a reputation to uphold." He warned him.
Mathias was desperately trying to think of a way to diffuse this situation.
The cultivator then grasped his strange layered multicolored robe and threw it off. Revealing a near identical robe beneath.
Thinking that dissolving this situation is no longer a reasonable resolution Mathias grabbed a black gold-embroidered cloth pouch and lifted it above his head.
Holding the string on the pouch he loosened it, causing blue starry powder to be spread in all directions.
The cultivator looked at it and frowned before making a strange stance, "Ten-Thousand Feathers Rain!"
The cultivator's arms were lifted by his sides as a peaceful smile painted his lips, palms facing the sun as if he planned to personally pull it down from the sky.
Bright-golden energy cascaded through his upper arms from his soul, collecting in his hands.
The golden light pooling in his palms started to leak downwards, spreading out and forming yellow gold wings of light beneath his arms.
The wings became more refined and detailed, each illusory feather becoming more visible and defined.
"Once there was darkness, until a creature of that dark created light. Henceforth the great Illustrious Immortal, One Who Embodies Kings of Gold was. The Immortal gave purpose to order, the Immortal gave direction to confusion, and gave hope to weakness. You will now witness the hope he has given! Ten-Thousand Feathers Rain!" He chanted
The illusory wings turned toward Mathias' direction and at the same time the stardust he scattered earlier congealed in the surrounding air, transforming the surroundings into a black veil interspaced by the light of faraway stars.
At this sight the cultivator's eyed widened as he made a tsk of annoyance and began chanting another phrase, "There were many who lived in dark that despised the Immortal's light but even the Mirror Obsessed Woman couldn't act against his greatness, the greatness of a world without the night." He expressed calmly
The brightness of the ensnarement domain increased drastically as Mathias moved his hands to cover his eyes.
Seizing the opportunity, the cultivator hailing by Hua Tai intended to dash forward and he did, arriving at Mathias' location before he finished realizing his intent.
Upon striking his body he realized something was off,
The body he struck fell apart into blue stardust!
Outside his starry domain the true Mathias stood in front of the barrier, That strange incantation he used actually weakened my Astris sorcery seal. By the looks of it his spell was aimed at dispelling Nix sorceries and Lunae sorceries, night and moon respectively. Astris sorcery means star, it has elements that represent darkness but it has a much stronger connection to light. I fear that if I actually used Nix or Lunae my barrier would have instantly collapsed. He thought.
Mathias then heard the cultivator's faraway voice from inside the barrier, "When did you perform the substitution young master, you made no hand signs nor any incantations, no matter what there always has to be telltale signs when one manipulates qi, this is a rule that applies to even immortals." He spoke calmly.
Seeing the effects of his seal working as intended, Mathias decided to teach him a bit about aether manipulation, "That's true, there is no way to completely eliminate the need for mediums but you can perform the mediums earlier to have them take effect later." I told him.
He spoke to Mathias again, this time slightly astonished, "I thought you came to me to sell off trinkets but instead you came with fighting on your mind?"
"It seems there has been a misunderstanding, when you delay sorceries without the use of a medium all you can do is set a strict time limit.
When you imbed sorceries into mundane items you can create space limits where the sorcery only activates when there is something specific in your surroundings, sadly metaphysical constructs such as the bloodlust or will to fight of others doesn't count as 'specific things in your surroundings', making it impossible to make a sorcery which teleports you to a safe location whenever someone in your vicinity holds bloodlust towards you.
Here's the cool trick though, if you reinforce a regular item with aether you can make it hold multiple sorceries that are activated either by certain actions to the item or having the item be in certain places, once one sorcery is activated the others can also be activated in a sequential manner that is most beneficial to you. Using this strategy one can obtain simultaneous dual casting by having the sequence of the sorceries be exactly the same. A feat you cannot achieve by using hand sigils or any other form of medium. Pairing a teleportation with an illusion overlay sorcery is one of the most useful combinations." Mathias explained
"I see, thank you for your instruction senior." The cultivator spoke reveredly.
Upon hearing him calm down Mathias deactivated his Astris matrix.
"Senior, if you don't mind me asking, who are you and where are you from?" He asked.
"My name is Mathias Calypses and I hail from a place faraway from here. A distant land where the sun doesn't shine. What's yours." He said
He immediately straightened his already straight posture, "I am Hua Tai Zhang Li hailing from the Hua Tai clan in the surrounding Hua forest." He said, taking a bow, "It's nice to meet senior."
That strange way of speaking again, Mathias contemplated.
"I would appreciate it if you could take me to your clan, since you claimed to be an heir." Mathias said
His face lit up, almost too much. Mathias thought.
"Yes senior, I will show you right away!" He said in relief.
They then started to walk the dirt path in the village and then took an unexpected turn, leading onto a far more forested path.
"You live in quite a rural area, righteous heir." Mathias chided
There was a miniscule shock in his composed expression, "It's not much further venerable senior." He spoke
I'll give it 15 seconds, Mathias thought.
Around him the green forest got a lot darker and a flash of bright golden struck Mathias Calypses' body.
Every part of Mathias' body was in shock apart from his mind.
A pale hand draped in a cultivator's vermillion flower robe ripped a pallid rib from Mathias' chest and impaled his heart with it.
Of course the genius sorcerer of Luna's Town wouldn't be unable to react to the second stage of such an attack, even if he were to be truly caught off guard.
Under normal circumstances that is. A courtesy of Solaris sorcery, Mathias' word for the type of magic practitioned by most cultivators in the Hua forest.
Solaris sorcery is incredibly fast, unquantifiable by the standards of other sorceries for it embodies light itself and because it embodies light and speed it cannot change it's direction once cast and decays it's own power rapidly.
This was all information that Mathias Calypses was already aware of.