Behemoth [Primordial Titan Cultivation/LitRPG]

When Cyril opened his eyes, he found his father's absurd face staring down at him.

His spiritual senses immediately exploded outward to encompass his surroundings. The panicked racing of his heart calmed after he realized he was laying in his sleeping chambers within the palace.

He had spent very few nights in the room since leading his tribe to Beljeza, forsaking the comfort of sleep in his obsession to progress forward. Still, there was comfort to be found in laying in one's own bed. The presence of his father added its own warmth.

Anand had always served as the bedrock for his family. When they were young, Cyril and his siblings all suffered from intermittent fevers from the potency of their Phoenix bloodline. Elys had fared worst of all, the heat of her own lifeforce tempering her body from within. While he had suffered less in comparison, it had been enough to leave a lingering scar in his memories.

Through it all, their father's presence had been a balm to their illness. Mother would visit as much as she could, but as the matriarch of the tribe, she had far too many responsibilities to attend to. His father's presence had always been a constant. The sight of him brought a smile to Cyril's face.

"See something funny, Cyril?" said Anand, waggling his eyebrows. Satisfied with the look of annoyance of his son's face, he settled back down into his bedside recliner.

The laughter lines around Anand's eyes were a touch strained, the effect amplified by the lenses of his spectacles. Hints of grey tainted the rich white of his hair. Still, given the attempt at acting playful and how it felt like Cyril had been allowed at least a couple hours of sleep, the outcome with Epiphany must not have been too terrible in the end.

Even if he hadn't quite succeeded in controlling the situation, at least he hadn't caused a complete disaster.

Cyril hauled himself into a sitting position in bed and groaned. Long hair spilled past his broad shoulders in a waterfall. He pulled it together and materialized rings of gold to secure it into place. The metal bands were E-grade material; anything less would have burst apart under the density of his hair unless he devoted part of his attention to Lightening it.

The aches and pains throughout his body attested to the fact that, despite his miraculous constitution, he was not immortal. Earth cracks when enough pressure is applied to it.

He took a few moments to assess his own state. Most of the damage had recovered while he slept, but trace effects of his injuries remained. That was within his expectations.

More interestingly, he discovered deep impurities and microfractures scattered throughout his body. They were old, insidious flaws that had evaded his notice until now. He'd been aware that his Foundations were not perfect, but the extent of the work still to be done surprised him. On top of this deeper insight, the connection between his mind and body felt more crisp, a touch more immediate, as if the gap between his nerves firing and muscles responding had tightened. At the higher levels of cultivation, a fraction of an objective second could be an eternity's difference.

As far as he could tell, this improvement came from his constitution bathing in Epiphany's leaked essence. A morbid way to benefit, but cultivators for time immemorial had suffered far worse for a fraction of the gain.

He hadn't considered that his Self-Forming Paragon Body would benefit from the more abstract Dominion of Knowledge. It only made sense, given its ever-adapting nature; the more stimuli it received, the better it would learn to react.

In a way, it was like his body was becoming its own autonomous golem. The thought somewhat disturbed him, in a weird way he couldn't quite narrow down. He doubted it would present much of a problem in the end, however. As he progressed through the realms, his tripartite soul would fuse more and more into one, until he reached the pinnacle and fulfilled his Destiny. It seemed unlikely that he would begin to lose control of his body when it was indistinguishable from his mind and spirit.

His eyes had also undergone a subtle evolution. A film of prismatic color tinged his peripheral vision—scars left behind from his hemorrhaging blood vessels. Like his own nose, it was all but invisible unless he focused on it.

The coloring reminded him of the rainbow eyes of Lady Firouza and her sister Ashira. Both of them seemed to possess a method of ocular cultivation related to his own desired path. Perhaps an innate bloodline, or they had both followed the path of a shared manual.

Ashira was one of the captives held within the Obsidian Prison, meditating the days away despite the lack of ambient qi inside. She could be a source of inspiration, but any information gained from Leviathan's forces would have to be taken with a grain of salt. His own mother had been forced to break her secluded meditation in order to deal with Ashira and her fellow infiltrators.

He couldn't even bear to look at the woman without his heart flaring with rage. Her assistance was unnecessary. As long as he meditated and continued to train his eyes properly, the breakthrough would come in time.

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His exposure to Epiphany hadn't been enough to acquire true Spatial Vision, but it had certainly provided the framework. When he did fully awaken his mystical sight, he had no doubt the experience would impart unique qualities into the attuned organs. Given that it required serious dedication to bond a Dominion to one's eyes--let alone such a complex one--any assistance at all was most appreciated.

But he couldn't forget Soren's warning about the dangers of peeking beyond the veil of reality. Especially now that he had caught a glimpse of the calamity Space cultivators were forced to work around. It was one thing to be told about old monsters in the night, and another thing to encounter one himself.

Is it better to be blind? Cyril clenched his fist. The threat remained whether he was aware of it or not. Still, he knew better than to boldly stare it in the eyes. For now.

The final improvement was his Dominion of Knowledge increasing almost a quarter of the way to the threshold to the Fifth Sphere.

After brushing against Epiphany, he'd actually absorbed far more than the twenty thousand points currently resting in his soul. A staggering amount of essence had been diverted into his body and eyes to empower them. Constitutions could be gluttonous, after all; his Magmatic Heart had required the sacrifice of his new Dominion of Volcanoes to activate.

Even so, what was usually considered a support concept had elevated itself out of proportion with the rest of his Dominions. Knowledge was now his highest Sphere affinity, even though Earth remained his primary element.

The imbalance didn't bother Cyril at all. Knowledge was notoriously difficult to improve, especially in the upper Spheres where Dominions grew far more demanding in their requirements to advance. Delving through the Seven Layers would provide his other lagging affinities plenty of opportunity to catch up.

Reviewing all of these changes took less than fifteen seconds. Anand swished his foot back and forth as he waited, feigning impatience. The academic was no stranger to youths getting lost in their thoughts for a while.

"What's the damage this time?" Cyril eventually grunted out.

Anand's stern face cracked a little. His hand drifted upward in a futile attempt at masking the small smile twitching at the corner of his lips. "Much worse than what you did back at the Scholarium when you absorbed the Fragment. You remember that one?"

Cyril shrugged and slipped his legs over the side of the bed. "I provided compensation."

Anand brushed that aside with a wave of his hand. "Anyways, this was much worse. The Library has been drained to its bare minimum functions. It's hard to tell from down here, but from conversations with other people attuned to the Dominion of Knowledge, we suspect that mess actually did the same to every single Library throughout the world. Since it's been two days and no one has come to investigate, it must not have been traceable to us."

Cyril choked and tried to mask it as a cough.

As troubling as it was that Epiphany's reawakening had disrupted the whole Library system, that wasn't his main concern.

Two days had passed.

He resisted the urge to close his eyes in annoyance. There was too much that needed to be done for him to rest for that long. He suspected he had received his time dilation boon because there was a constant undercurrent of tension always in the back of his mind--never enough hours in a day to do what needed to be done.

In the end, he couldn't blame his father or anyone else. He was the one that had overslept. And, truth be told, the break had been necessary. No doubt it had been the bare minimum he actually needed. Burning the candle at both ends, his people called it.

Already dressed in his usual self-cleaning tunic and trousers, he summoned a pair of slippers from his spatial ring. He felt strangely exposed in his casual outfit. After a moment of consideration, he Reinforced his body with Earth qi. A familiar sturdiness settled over him. Paranoia demanded he erect several more layers of defense, but he resisted the urge. Anything able to threaten him in the heart of his city would overwhelm any meager protection he could add.

It was never a mistake to be careful. But it could be a mistake to let an unfortunate encounter turn him into a traumatized mess. Many promising cultivators had lost their will after a close brush with death. Self-control was paramount.

Trying to mask his discomfort, Cyril smiled at his father. "Let's pay a visit to the Library."

Anand nodded solemnly.

As they departed the palace, Cyril couldn't help but feel the stares from the servants and guards. The attention was nothing new, but it made the back of his neck tingle. He wasn't worried about any of them, of course; they were all trusted tribesmen. His thoughts kept returning to the wire of oblivion that had targeted Epiphany.

He couldn't let his concerns paralyze him. That unacceptable discomfort, that paranoia, would be repurposed to drive him forward.

The first step was to learn about the mysterious executioner without inviting its attention. Then, he would figure out how to overcome it. To do so, he needed to discover what sort of condition Epiphany was in.

As they walked, Anand offered a closer update on how the situation had developed in Cyril's absence. Listening to his father's soothing voice helped ease some of the tension from his shoulders. The citizens of Beljeza--tribesmen and drows alike--had been investing as much qi as possible into the Library. The building had restored its basic functions, overseen by Barnbas the imp. A squad of elite, trusted guards were keeping the area under close watch.

"Especially your little Spirit Sculpture," said Anand, his tone full of meaning. "We've kept as many people away as possible, though I did take the liberty of examining it myself. I wanted to bring in some of my assistants, but given the…delicate nature of the situation…I figured it was best to wait for you."

"Spirit Sculpture?" Cyril frowned. "I was trying to make a golem."

Anand winced and pushed his spectacles up to the bridge of his nose. "We have a lot of work to do, my boy."