The text moved on to another critical topic, one that made the stratification even more explicit.
Talent Measurement, the section began, explaining how a cultivator's potential was determined through crystals attuned to Aster. When someone touched these measuring crystals their innate talent revealed itself through color. A simple visual representation of complex internal capacity.
The colors formed a hierarchy from weakest to strongest. Red at the bottom representing the weakest talent, barely capable of cultivation. Then Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet, Silver, Gold, and finally White at the peak. Described as the highest and purest form of talent, extraordinarily rare and appearing most often in ancient bloodline families.
Talent determined everything that mattered. How efficiently someone cultivated, how quickly they progressed through Gates, how readily they could achieve Realm breakthroughs. Two people with identical training and resources would advance at completely different rates based solely on the color that appeared when they touched that measuring crystal.
White talent practically guaranteed ascension to the highest levels given sufficient time and resources. Red talent meant a lifetime of struggle just to reach middle Gates. The system did not care about effort or determination or desire, only about innate capacity that could not be changed or improved, only revealed and accepted.
Riven thought about Hugo's words from the history he had read, about being elite, about seeds that should reflect their source. In a world where talent was measurable and immutable, where color determined destiny, having a son who could not even awaken must be particularly galling for someone who presumably possessed talent at the highest levels.
The text continued, explaining that everyone in Desolara was slightly elevated because of ambient Aster energy. There were no truly weak people anymore, just varying degrees of strength. The baseline had shifted upward across the entire population.
But awakening was the critical threshold. The moment when you unlocked your Aster Meridians and could begin actively cultivating the energy rather than just passively benefiting from its presence. Before awakening you were stronger than pre Aster humans but still fundamentally limited. After awakening you entered a completely different category of existence.
Interestingly, the text noted, there were no cultivation manuals. No secret techniques or family methods that granted advantage. Your talent determined how well you could assimilate and cultivate Aster. It was intuitive, personal, unique to each individual. Two people with identical talent would still develop slightly different approaches based on their nature and understanding.
There was also no specialization in the traditional sense. No division between mages and warriors or similar categories. Everyone who awakened could use Aster equally, channeling it through their bodies for physical enhancement or projecting it outward for ranged effects. The only real separation being that a select fortunate few could awaken bloodlines on top of their basic Aster cultivation, gaining additional abilities that transcended what normal practitioners could achieve.
The text moved on to discuss threats, the dangers that motivated cultivation in the first place.
Aster Beasts were the most common, animals exposed to Aster that had mutated into dangerous creatures powered by the cosmic energy. They contained Aster Cores within their bodies, crystallized concentrations of energy that cultivators hunted for resources and advancement. Absorbing cores could accelerate Gate progression or provide raw power for breakthroughs.
The beasts were classified by threat level. E Class being weakest, barely more dangerous than normal animals. Then D Class, C Class, B Class, A Class, and finally S Class representing the strongest regular beasts. Creatures that could threaten entire settlements or kill experienced cultivators if encountered unprepared.
But Aster Beasts were merely the foundation of the threat hierarchy.
Far more dangerous were the Asterfiend, creatures born directly from pure uncorrupted Aster energy rather than mutated from existing animals. These entities were both physical and semi ethereal, taking various animalistic or humanoid forms that defied normal biology. They were evolution personified, what Aster Beasts became when they transcended their origins and achieved something greater.
What set Asterfiend apart, what made them legendary rather than simply dangerous, was what they contained. Instead of Aster Cores, Asterfiend held Aster Shards, actual fragments of the original stellar shard itself. Specs of primordial cosmic matter that contained exponentially more power than any normal core.
These shards were invaluable beyond measure, capable of triggering breakthrough Realm advancements that might otherwise take decades or prove completely impossible. A single Aster Shard could catapult a cultivator past bottlenecks that trapped others for life. When an Asterfiend died its shard returned to the world, enriching Desolara like cosmic fertilizer, spreading that primordial energy back into the environment.
The classification system for Asterfiend reflected their transcendent nature.
Centennial Class represented power equal to one hundred S Rank Aster Beasts. Already beyond what most cultivators could hope to defeat alone. These were regional threats, monsters that required coordinated response from multiple powerful practitioners.
Millennial Class escalated to power equal to one thousand S Rank Aster Beasts. These were catastrophes waiting to happen, capable of destroying entire cities if left unchecked. Fighting one required the kind of strength that only elite cultivators possessed.
Legion Class represented power equal to ten thousand S Rank Aster Beasts, but more significantly this was the threshold where Asterfiend gained true intelligence. The first level where they could think, reason, communicate with humans as equals rather than simply operating on primal instinct. From Legion Class upward Asterfiend stopped being beasts and became something more like rival civilizations, entities with goals and schemes and the power to reshape Desolara according to their will.
Destruction Class exceeded one million S Rank Aster Beasts in power. The text did not elaborate much here, apparently these were so rare and devastating that detailed discussion felt unnecessary. Catastrophes that could end civilizations, force even the Twelve families to cooperate against common threat.
The text emphasized that Asterfiend did not simply spawn randomly. They were the evolutionary pinnacle of Aster Beasts, the rare few who managed to transform their nature entirely. Climbing from mundane mutation to cosmic entity. Encounters with them were legendary events that could reshape the balance of power across entire regions.
Finally the exposition reached what seemed to be its central concern, the factor that explained why resources and bloodline mattered so profoundly.
Primordial Aster Sources, the section declared, were the key to Realm breakthroughs. Without access to these concentrations of Aster in its original uncorrupted state, progress beyond certain thresholds became nearly impossible.
The text listed several types of Primordial Sources.
Stellar Shards were fragments of the original star itself. Only one existed in the entire world, it was then split twelve ways, one per family among the Twelve. These families had split their shards into smaller pieces distributed among their members, but even fragments of fragments contained more primordial energy than most cultivators would encounter in lifetimes.
Primordial Zones were locations where the first ripple was strongest. Places where the shard had first appeared on Desolara or where major fragments had landed. These zones radiated concentrated Aster that retained some of its original character. Meditating or training in such places could facilitate breakthroughs that would be impossible elsewhere.
Aster Shards taken from Asterfiend provided portable sources of primordial energy. Hunting these creatures was incredibly dangerous but potentially rewarding beyond measure. A single shard could enable Realm advancement that might otherwise require years of accumulation in Primordial Zones.
Celestial Events created temporary access to concentrated Aster. Cosmic phenomena like meteor showers or stellar alignments that briefly elevated ambient energy to primordial levels. These events were unpredictable and competed for intensely, every major power monitoring the skies for opportunities.
Bloodline Reservoirs represented what ancient families like the Twelve had accumulated across generations. Hoarding Primordial Sources through centuries of collection and control. Access to these reservoirs explained why bloodline families produced so many high level cultivators. They had advantages that common practitioners could not hope to match.
The text concluded this section with stark assessment. Without access to Primordial Sources a cultivator could reach Third Gate through effort alone but might never progress beyond Second Realm. This created massive divide between those with resources and those without, between bloodline families and common practitioners, between those born with access and those who had to fight for scraps.
The system was not designed to be fair. It was designed to reward those who already had advantages, to ensure that power concentrated among those whose ancestors had been powerful. Cosmic catastrophe had transformed the world but had not eliminated hierarchy, had merely shifted its basis from pure politics to cultivation backed by accumulated primordial resources.
Riven closed the book slowly, his mind reeling with everything he had absorbed. The afternoon light had shifted, golden streams now coming from different angles as the sun moved toward evening. He had been reading for hours, lost in text that explained the fundamental rules of his new existence.
He understood now. Understood Desolara and Aster and the cultivation system that governed advancement. Understood why the Twelve families held such power and why bloodlines mattered so profoundly. Understood the hierarchy of threats and the stratification of society and the bottlenecks that trapped most people at levels far below their ambitions.
But understanding the system did not solve his immediate problem. Did not explain why he specifically had failed to awaken twice. Did not provide the key to succeeding on his third attempt. He had the context now, knew what awakening meant and what came after, but knowing the destination did not reveal the path when you could not even take the first step.
What was wrong with this body? Why had the original Riven failed when every other Astravar child presumably succeeded? Was it talent? Was the measuring crystal going to reveal red or orange when he finally touched it, condemning him to perpetual inadequacy no matter how hard he tried?
Or was it something else? Some physical issue, some spiritual blockage, some fundamental incompatibility between this borrowed body and the bloodline it supposedly carried? Could consciousness transfer have broken something, disrupted whatever connection the original Riven had possessed?
The questions spiraled without answers. Riven sat in his corner surrounded by thousands of books and felt profoundly alone. Levin had died to escape impossible expectations and woken up facing different but equally crushing standards. Both lives defined by being measured against benchmarks he could not meet. Both existences shadowed by disappointment from powers that controlled his fate.
The library doors opened, pulling him from dark thoughts. Esme entered, her green hair catching the afternoon light, her face still hidden behind those carefully arranged strands. She spotted him in his corner and approached with quiet steps.
"Seventh Star," her voice carried concern. "Evening approaches. I've come to escort you back to your chambers as requested."
Had it been that long? Riven glanced toward the high windows and realized the light had indeed shifted toward dusk, golden afternoon giving way to amber evening. He had spent the entire day reading, absorbing history and system mechanics, learning everything except the one thing he actually needed to know.
"Of course." He stood, muscles protesting slightly from hours of sitting. The books remained on the table. He would return them tomorrow or perhaps keep them for reference. For now he had extracted what information they contained, filled his mind with knowledge that felt simultaneously invaluable and insufficient.
They walked back through corridors that felt familiar now despite this being only his second day in this body. Past the empty armor suits and tapestries, past the guards whose shock had faded into simple acknowledgment. The Seventh Star was recovered, walking, apparently spending entire days in the library like some kind of scholar. Strange but no longer alarming.
Esme remained quiet during the journey, perhaps sensing his contemplative mood, perhaps simply having nothing to add. The evening light painted everything in shades of amber and gold, casting long shadows that stretched across polished floors.
Then something changed.
A shift in the air that Riven could not identify or explain. Not temperature, not pressure, not anything his borrowed senses could properly categorize. Just wrongness, like reality itself had adjusted slightly, become denser somehow. More present.
Every hair on his body prickled. His skin erupted in goosebumps. Some primitive instinct screamed danger in languages older than conscious thought.
He stopped walking, frozen by sensation he did not understand. Could not understand. He had not awakened, did not know what Aster felt like, had no frame of reference for what his body was responding to with such visceral alarm.
Esme stopped beside him, her posture going rigid. Then she looked forward down the corridor and immediately dropped into a deep bow, far deeper than the one she gave Riven, her entire body radiating respect mixed with fear.
"I greet the First Star!" Her voice rang out with formal precision, each word enunciated perfectly despite the tremor underneath.
Riven's gaze snapped forward.
Standing in the corridor ahead, perhaps twenty feet away, was a man who could only be his eldest brother.
Kieran Astravar. The First Star. The heir.
He was massive. Eight feet four inches of pure intimidation, towering over Riven's own six three like an adult over a child. Where Riven's build was lean and still growing, Kieran was filled out completely. Broad shoulders that seemed to span the corridor, powerful frame that spoke of years perfecting combat, the physique of someone who had transcended normal human limitations. He wore black and silver that marked him as Astravar, but his uniform was military cut, practical rather than ceremonial, designed for function over appearance and tailored to accommodate his immense size.
His hair was violet like Riven's but dramatically longer, flowing past his shoulders in wild strands that seemed to move with their own energy, some strands sweeping across his face while others billowed behind him like they were caught in an invisible wind. His face carried the sharp features that seemed to mark the bloodline, strong jaw, high cheekbones, but his eyes were different. Not blue like Riven's but a deeper shade, almost purple, and they held an intensity that made looking at him difficult.
And radiating from him was that presence. That shift in reality that had made Riven's instincts scream. Invisible but tangible, pressing against the air itself, making everything feel heavier, denser, more real.
Kieran's eyes settled on Riven, looking down from his towering height, studying him with an expression that revealed nothing. Assessment without judgment. Observation without emotion.
The First Star had returned.
And Riven stood frozen in the corridor, every nerve in his borrowed body screaming that he was in the presence of something far beyond his ability to comprehend or challenge, facing the brother who had set the standard all others were measured against, the heir who had succeeded where Riven had only failed.
The silence stretched between them, heavy with implications Riven could not yet understand.