Chapter 108

The first gust folded my left upper wing badly enough that I dropped nearly twenty meters.

I let myself fall.

The gap beneath me descended through layer after layer of Everwell Prime's dense infrastructure until individual structures became too distant for my [Awareness] to distinguish.

Around me, towers stood kilometers apart.

Not across empty space.

Everwell Prime didn't waste anything so useful.

Massive environmental systems exchanged air between areas through gaps like this one, creating pressure gradients whose [Flow]s shifted with temperature, traffic, machinery, and whatever incomprehensibly large mechanisms kept the Sector's artificial environment livable.

Most flyers avoided the worst regions.

I had deliberately entered one.

Thirty meters.

Forty.

The offending gust weakened.

I kept my wings folded.

Fifty.

Air rushed past loudly enough to drown most subtler sounds.

My [Awareness] expanded.

Pressure.

Movement.

Heat.

Distant turbulence from traffic far outside my chosen region.

A broad rising [Flow] several hundred meters below.

A narrower lateral [Flow] curling around the side of a nearby structure.

My own wake.

Thousands of movements layered over one another.

I waited.

Then spread all four wings.

The air struck.

Hard.

My descent converted violently into forward motion as I angled into the rising [Flow], my body whipping sideways before I stabilized.

Bad.

Again.

I circled upward.

Returned to approximately the same altitude.

Folded my wings.

Fell.

The second attempt differed before it even began.

My lower wings opened first.

The upper pair followed only after my body had already rotated.

Less violent transition.

More altitude lost.

Lower physical strain.

Higher total time.

Better?

In one way.

Worse in another.

Again.

Upper wings first.

Again.

All four simultaneously at shallower angles.

Again.

One lower wing slightly before the other.

Again.

Enter the current farther east.

Again.

Faster.

Again.

Slower.

Again.

A pulse of [Will] stabilizing my torso.

Then without it.

Again.

Again.

Again.

By the twentieth attempt, calling them repetitions would have been inaccurate.

I wasn't repeating anything.

Every attempt differed.

Sometimes deliberately.

Sometimes because the vast environmental [Flow]s changed before I reached them.

Sometimes because I changed.

The exact same motion performed an hour later wasn't the exact same motion anymore.

Different fatigue.

Different air.

Different starting velocity.

Different [Knowledge].

Different objective.

Different attempt.

Yet all for the same [Purpose].

So I climbed higher.

Far above most ordinary traffic, the towers surrounding the gap looked less like buildings and more like pillars supporting an artificial world.

The upper Strata remained far above.

Below...

Everwell Prime extended until scale stopped being meaningful.

Lights.

Structures.

Transit routes.

Civilization reduced to patterns.

None of it mattered right now.

I dove.

My wings snapped shut.

Air screamed around me.

My [Flow] rendered the immense movements surrounding me increasingly legible.

My [Purpose] remained simple.

Develop.

And my [Cultivation] Aspect...

Asked what it had always asked.

How did I make the next attempt better?

I opened one wing.

My trajectory twisted.

Badly.

I corrected.

Too much.

Stored the result.

Again.

The second turn wasted less momentum.

Again.

The third wasted even less.

The fourth deliberately wasted more because I wanted a tighter correction.

The fifth abandoned turning entirely and used the same entry conditions to test braking.

The sixth transformed braking into ascent.

The seventh preserved speed.

The eighth discarded speed in favor of control.

Better.

Worse.

Better at what?

That question had followed my [Cultivation] for years.

Once, its answer had been easy.

Survive.

Consume less energy.

Endure longer.

Become stronger.

Make the next [Exertion] slightly less pathetic than the previous one.

Then my Path expanded.

And "better" stopped meaning one thing.

More efficient Essence development could be worse if it consumed too much of my overdevelopment safety margin.

Greater physical strain could be better if my objective was physical [Tempering].

Lower strain could be better if I wanted to isolate [Flow].

A difficult method could be inefficient now and invaluable later.

A crude one could be optimal solely because it created the [Foundation] for something more advanced.

Something [Ideal] for me could be disastrous for another Entity.

Something [Ideal] for me today could become useless after one advancement.

There was no singular best.

There never had been.

I accelerated downward.

Then opened my wings at an awful moment.

My entire body jerked.

Pain flashed through the base of my upper pair.

My trajectory destabilized.

I corrected instantly.

Too instantly.

The correction magnified another error.

So I stopped.

Not falling.

Correcting.

I let the movement develop.

Observed where it naturally wanted to go.

Then acted.

That worked better.

For this attempt.

Under these conditions.

With this mistake already made.

[Guided] remembered.

Every movement.

Every correction.

Every conclusion I later discovered had been wrong.

Years of them.

I had carried out [Cultivation] while starving.

Injured.

Exhausted.

Flying.

Swimming.

Healing.

Studying.

Communing.

Training Aspects.

Synthesizing them.

Refining my body.

My mind.

My techniques.

My Essence.

My Path.

Some [Cultivation] required physical [Exertion].

Some required absolute stillness.

Some required doing more.

Some required deliberately doing less.

Some required abandoning a method because optimizing it further had become less efficient than replacing it with something I had only just discovered or only just become capable of performing.

Hundreds of approaches.

Thousands of variants.

The categories barely mattered.

This unapproved version came from the NovelPhoenix chapter; reading the author's publication there helps support their work.

I spread my wings.

A pressure wave caught me.

Instead of resisting, I allowed it to carry me sideways until its direction intersected another [Flow].

Then I acted.

Lower wings redirected.

Upper wings stabilized.

Body rotated.

Momentum transferred.

The movement that had been an obstacle became propulsion.

Efficient.

Very efficient.

And almost completely useless if the [Flow] shifted ten degrees.

I climbed again.

The obviousness of it was satisfying.

My [Cultivation] had never been a search for the best method.

Reality changed too much.

I changed too much.

My Path changed too much.

My [Purpose] changed what counted as desirable.

My [Foundation] changed what I already possessed.

My [Comprehension] changed what approaches were available.

My body changed.

My Aspects changed.

My constraints changed.

The answer couldn't remain static when the question itself changed every time I asked it.

How did I make the next attempt better?

The next attempt.

One.

From here.

With what I possessed now.

Toward my present [Purpose].

Under reality's present constraints.

Better.

And once I succeeded...

The answer itself changed the conditions of the following question.

I turned into another [Flow].

My wings adjusted.

Again.

Better.

Then obsolete.

Again.

Better.

Then incomplete.

Again.

Better.

Then it all became but my new starting point.

Because...

My [Cultivation] had always been recursive.

I had always intimately known that.

A technique refined the next technique.

Experience improved how I acquired more experience.

My [Cultivation] routines became targets of their own [Cultivation].

[Guided] turned every correction into material for whatever followed.

But some part of my [Comprehension] had still treated improvement as movement toward an ever-receding optimum, the kind of [Perfection] I was conceptually pursuing for the synthesis of my [Mastery] Aspect into a First Order Aspect.

As though enough [Cultivation] might eventually produce something...

Done.

Instead, success simply changed what could be improved next.

If my flight became effortless, I could improve what I did while flying.

If physiological [Cultivation] became passive, I could spend the freed attention elsewhere.

If I acquired such a deep [Mastery] of a technique that conscious execution disappeared, it became [Foundation] for something more complicated.

Success didn't conclude [Cultivation].

It created a better place to begin again.

I stopped climbing.

My Essence stirred.

The disturbance was large enough, and affected enough of my being, that I recognized what was occurring before consciously understanding why.

My wings held steady against the [Flow]ing air.

For approximately one second.

Then another [Flow] struck and hurled me sideways.

I corrected.

Not with [Will].

Not forcefully.

One wing.

Then another.

A slight change in posture.

Minimal energy expenditure for maximal control.

My body slipped out of the strongest portion of the [Flow] and entered the sheltered region behind an immense structural protrusion nearby.

There.

I flew toward it.

A maintenance beam extended from the neighboring tower into open space, broad enough relative to me to resemble a platform.

No people.

No nearby traffic.

Only impossible quantities of moving air.

Appropriate.

I landed.

Sat.

And communed with my Essence.

My [Cultivation] Aspect overshadowed everything.

It was evidently too deeply connected throughout my Essence for a Tier advancement to remain localized.

Ripples propagated through my body.

Mind.

Techniques.

Practices.

My other Aspects.

Years of [Cultivation] returned to me in indistinct glimpses.

Deliberate optimization.

Methods for optimizing methods.

[Comprehension].

[Mastery].

[Clarity].

[Harmony].

[Purpose].

[Flow].

[Foundation].

Every addition to my Path had subsequently changed how I could improve it.

And every improvement changed what became possible afterward.

No perfect routine.

No permanent optimum.

Slow methods.

Fast ones.

Dangerous ones.

Safe ones.

Ones maximizing development.

Others minimizing Essence development cost.

Ones deepening a single Aspect.

Others integrating several.

All correct...

At different moments.

For different [Purpose]s.

Under different constraints.

My [Clarity] kept those distinctions from collapsing into one vague principle.

My [Harmony] allowed contradictory methods to remain simultaneously valid.

My [Purpose] gave them direction.

My [Foundation] gave them somewhere to begin.

My [Flow] connected one state to another.

And [Cultivation]...

Made the next state better over and over again, in an endless cycle of development.

Lost within the tide of my accumulated [Cultivation] experiences, I barely noticed the advancement itself until it reached its peak.

For a moment, the overwhelming complexity of my Essence felt almost simple.

Not because anything had disappeared.

Because countless different approaches shared the same underlying structure.

Take what existed.

Attempt.

Observe.

Change.

Become capable of a better next attempt.

Then begin from there.

The conceptual agitation crested.

Aspect Advanced: [Cultivation] (Tier 2) ➞ [Cultivation] (Tier 3)

...then slowly began to settle.

To me, the entire advancement disorder felt as though it had lasted only a few hours.

[Guided] disagreed.

So did the exhaustion accumulated throughout my body and mind.

Apparently, many times that amount had passed while I remained in communion, capturing every ripple, fluctuation, and minute conceptual shift I could extract from the advancement.

As usual, I remained in communion even after the worst of the disorder faded.

Partly to observe its final remnants.

Partly to assess the damage.

My overdevelopment safety margin had fallen considerably.

Expected.

Annoying.

But expected.

Only once I had finished accounting for that did I turn my attention toward what had actually changed.

Those differences were...

Harder to define.

My [Cultivation] Aspect felt...

Broader.

Not because it suddenly reached into parts of my existence it had never touched before.

It already touched almost everything.

Rather, the range of valid [Cultivation] itself had become clearer.

An [Exertion] was no longer merely something to improve.

It existed among possible replacements.

Branches.

Routes.

Different developments serving different ends.

Which one was "better" depended on where I stood and where my [Purpose] pointed.

Interesting.

Something to investigate later.

Much later.

My Essence had done enough for now.

Exiting communion, I was welcomed back by my [Awareness] capturing a [Flow] of wind striking the enormous beam beneath me.

It split around it.

Rejoined farther behind.

Vortices formed.

Dissipated.

Were replaced.

A faultless depiction of the [Truth] that nothing ever remained entirely still.

A [Truth] that applied equally to my Essence, my Path, and my existence.

Contemplating it in the aftermath of my [Cultivation] Aspect advancement, for reasons my [Clarity] couldn't immediately elucidate, my [Focus] idly drifted toward my [Foundation] Aspect.

Not that I had any intention of carrying out more Aspect [Cultivation] anytime soon.

My overdevelopment safety margin made that decision evident.

Yet...

There was something there.

Something tied to everything I had just understood.

My [Cultivation] methods were innumerable.

So were my [Foundation]s.

My body.

Habits.

[Knowledge].

Aspects.

Techniques.

Relationships.

Wealth.

Experience.

Mistakes.

Each could support something later.

But none was permanent.

My body changed.

Techniques were discarded.

[Knowledge] was corrected.

Relationships ended.

Credits moved.

Aspects advanced.

Some might eventually be synthesized away entirely.

Even ideas I presently considered [Foundation]al could prove incomplete.

So what, exactly, formed the [Foundation] of a Path built around constant change?

I already possessed one answer.

Growth.

My [Purpose] rested upon it.

I wanted to see how far my Path could go when growth itself became the [Foundation] from which every next step began.

That remained correct.

But now...

I understood more of why.

Growth wasn't my [Foundation] merely because I valued it.

It was my [Foundation] because everything else could change without contradicting it.

Replace a method?

The replacement began from and with everything the discarded method taught me.

Discover a belief was wrong?

The correction became part of what I knew afterward.

Fail?

The failure altered the next attempt.

Succeed?

So did the success.

Lose something.

Recover.

Adapt.

Change direction.

Form an unexpected Aspect.

Abandon a planned one.

None of it broke the structure beneath my Path.

Because the structure wasn't any particular result.

It was what I did afterward.

Continue.

Refine.

Optimize.

Integrate.

Grow.

Then continue again.

My thoughts slowed.

I doubted methods constantly.

I had built much of my Path through doubting them.

Testing.

Rejecting.

Correcting.

I doubted conclusions.

Assumptions.

Strategies.

Long-term plans when new [Knowledge] made them obsolete.

But I had never seriously doubted one thing.

That my current state should never remain my final one.

Not when I was starving.

Not when Volow collapsed.

Not when my body failed.

Not when the Red Sand Sector stopped containing what I needed.

Not when the road to Everwell became difficult.

Not when my overdevelopment disorder reduced serious Essence development to insulting fragments.

Not throughout the months it took to form my [Vitality] Aspect.

Not when my [Awareness] of [Flow]s refused to become as intuitive as I expected.

Not when my [Foundation] Aspect took so long merely to form.

I changed methods.

Objectives.

Environments.

Myself.

The continuation remained.

That was the stable part.

The thing everything else rested upon.

My [Foundation] wasn't a collection of immovable stones.

A Path like mine couldn't be built that way.

Too much would eventually need replacing.

Instead...

Every previous state became material beneath the next.

Not because everything survived.

Because even what I discarded changed what followed.

A failed method remained in [Guided].

A mistaken conclusion prevented me from rediscovering the same mistake.

A limitation overcome became evidence that limitations could be overcome.

An achievement became the minimum from which another began.

And beneath that accumulation...

The refusal to stop building.

The instant my [Comprehension] came to encompass that [Insight]...

I felt my [Foundation] Aspect begin to move.

Instinctively, I almost denied it.

My safety margin had already suffered enough.

But my [Foundation] Aspect disagreed.

And for all the idle time this advancement would cost me, denying it would have gone against the Essence of my Path.

So I didn't push back.

Didn't ignite my [Ambition].

Didn't direct my [Will] toward forcing the advancement.

I merely slipped back into communion as my [Foundation] Aspect responded to a [Comprehension] that had apparently been waiting for my [Cultivation] to clarify itself first.

Which, now that it was occurring under my [Awareness] and [Clarity]...

Made sense in hindsight.

My [Foundation] had always been intertwined with [Cultivation].

I simply hadn't truly grasped how deeply.

[Foundation] wasn't the opposite of change.

It wasn't permanence for permanence's sake.

It was what made change cumulative.

Without it, improvement could remain isolated, just as [Mastery] could allow me to master something to the point of [Perfection] without necessarily letting me transcend it.

A technique could be learned without supporting the next.

[Knowledge] could accumulate without restructuring my [Comprehension].

Success could occur without making future success easier.

With [Foundation]...

My past mattered.

Not because it deserved preservation.

Because my present could begin where it ended.

My Essence answered the [Comprehension] with a strange ripple.

Far gentler than the disorder my [Cultivation] Aspect advancement had provoked.

Mercifully.

But just like that...

My [Foundation] Aspect began deepening.

Connections already present became easier to distinguish.

Body supporting technique.

Technique supporting Aspect.

[Knowledge] supporting [Comprehension].

[Comprehension] supporting [Mastery].

Failure supporting correction.

Correction supporting another attempt.

Old versions of myself supporting the current one merely by having existed long enough to be surpassed.

No individual piece was the [Foundation].

The accumulation was.

A Path capable of replacing everything except its insistence on becoming more.

Hours later, the disorder fulfilled its [Purpose].

Aspect Advanced: [Foundation] (Tier 0) ➞ [Foundation] (Tier 1)

And just like that, two of my Aspects had advanced one after another, months earlier than I had expected either to.

The consequences were considerably less pleasant.

My overdevelopment safety margin had been depleted enough that active Essence development was looking like a distant privilege for approximately a month.

Annoying.

As always.

The irony, at least, was entertaining.

My [Cultivation] Aspect had become even better at developing my Path and Essence, making the disorder restricting that development even more oppressive.

Meanwhile, [Foundation] had taken another step toward the threshold required to do something about it.

One advancement tightened my shackles.

The other strengthened one of the tools meant to break them.

There was probably some [Harmony] to be found in that.

Several minutes of contemplation failed to make the [Insight] any deeper than its premise.

So I discarded it.

[Guided] (Origin)

[Cultivation] (Tier 3)

[Comprehension] (Tier 1)

[Awareness] (Tier 3)

[Secrecy] (Tier 1)

[Will] (Tier 4)

[Clarity] (Tier 2)

[Harmony] (Tier 2)

[Ambition] (Tier 1)

[Purity] (Tier 1)

[Mastery] (Tier 1)

[Vitality] (Tier 0)

[Flow] (Tier 1)

[Foundation] (Tier 1)

[Purpose] (Tier 1)

[Inspiration] (Tier 0)

At last, after taking in my changed Essence, I ended my communion.

Nothing around me had changed.

Wind still [Flow]ed chaotically through the immense gap.

No one knew where I was.

No one knew that two of my Aspects had advanced.

No witnesses.

No congratulations.

Appropriate.

I stood and stretched my tired wings.

No injuries.

Only the accumulated strain from before my Essence decided to develop at such inconvenient timing.

At the edge of the beam, the same immense drop awaited me.

For one moment, I considered diving again.

Testing my Tier 3 [Cultivation].

Ascertaining what my newly advanced [Foundation] had changed.

What an awful idea.

I flew away instead.

Most obstacles throughout my existence had received essentially the same answer.

Improve myself until I could overcome them.

That answer had served me exceptionally well.

It still would.

But as my Path grew...

So did the range of things I could meaningfully change.

Not every better next attempt needed to end with me being the only thing that became different.

The thought surfaced without invitation.

I stored it.

There would be time.

I accelerated into the [Flow]ing wind.

Adjusted.

Changed course.

Continued.

For years, I had searched for the next problem.

The next question.

The next piece of [Knowledge].

The next door.

Eventually...

Perhaps some of them would start finding me.

There were still far too many things ahead of me worth changing.