Chapter 78

Landing upon one of the highest exterior platforms of the Pulse Tower always felt different.

Beneath me...

Kilometers of pristine white architecture stretched, golden patterns flowing downward through floors, treatment centers, repositories, laboratories, offices, and residences too numerous for my [Awareness] to encompass.

Above me...

A ceiling marking the boundary between this Strata and the one above waited a mere hundred meters away.

Close enough that its immense metal surface no longer resembled a distant sky.

Every seam could be distinguished.

Every uneven section left behind by ages of maintenance.

Every vast structural support merging with various towers, including the Pulse Tower.

So high up, though, space was mostly dissociated from the endless movement closer to the ground.

No exterior passages crossed this height.

Few people possessed reason to come here beyond accessing the upper Strata infrastructure and facilities.

And that was true even for the Pulse Tower's inhabitants.

Its patients.

Its members.

Its supplies.

Its web of duties and interests.

It all belonged kilometers below, along with all the noises they produced, which from here all merged into an indistinct hum.

Barely audible.

Far away.

It was there, exposed to the open Strata yet removed from most of its noise, that I felt most comfortable.

An irrelevant preference under ordinary circumstances.

But not today.

Comfort couldn't be entirely discounted when I might form my concept of [Vitality] into an Aspect.

The position of my body affected my thoughts.

My thoughts affected my [Clarity].

My [Clarity] affected every other Aspect required for what I intended to accomplish.

Therefore, comfort possessed a practical value I wouldn't neglect the absence or presence of.

Delving down this line of [Comprehension], I unceremoniously sat near the platform's edge.

Crossed my legs.

Rested my hands against my knees.

Then began.

My right hand rose.

Without conscious planning, I swept one finger through the air.

A fine thread of golden [Vitality] emerged from my fingertip and followed the path I traced.

It remained suspended afterward.

Pulsing.

Curving through the air in a smooth arc.

My [Harmony] granted every part of its structure a place within the whole.

My [Purity] preserved what belonged to my concept while excluding every irrelevant expression of health, growth, healing, energy, or survival that had once contaminated it.

The thread trembled faintly beneath the currents surrounding the tower.

It didn't disperse.

It endured.

I moved my finger again.

The strand followed.

One arc became two.

Two became a circle.

Gold traced itself around me in a display so precise that no portion crossed another and no pulse disrupted the rhythm of the rest.

It was, arguably, a beautiful display.

Not that beauty possessed any relevance.

Still...

The result deserved acknowledgment.

A year and a half had passed since I first entered this Pulse Tower.

I underwent an examination trial whose expectations I barely understood.

I became a trial Aspirant.

Xafsa's personal aide.

A member of an organization whose systems, hierarchy, and endless [Life] [Knowledge] had initially dwarfed everything I knew.

I formed my [Mastery] Aspect.

Advanced many others.

[Clarity].

[Cultivation].

[Ambition].

[Comprehension].

[Purity].

Built my concept of [Vitality].

Manifested it.

Tested it upon plantoid tissues.

Killed those tissues.

Refined it.

Applied it to my body.

Damaged myself.

Refined it again.

Became an Aspirant.

Then continued to refine my concept of [Vitality] until it could enter every part of my physical vessel without inducing any issue.

A year and a half.

Long.

Unacceptably long, had every delay been voluntary.

Brief compared to how many years Xafsa had claimed the process commonly required.

And today...

Today would—hopefully—mark more than another giant's step forward for my Path.

Forming the [Vitality] Aspect was the first major threshold separating me from the Pulse's records concerning the attenuation of my overdevelopment disorder.

The first requirement placed between me and the means through which my Path might finally grow wings unburdened by the chains wrapped around my Essence.

Physical wings, I already possessed.

Four.

More than sufficient.

The wings my Path required were different.

The freedom to advance whenever my [Ambition] demanded it.

To carry out one [Cultivation] after another without weeks of artificial idleness.

To accept an [Insight] without first calculating how much Essence development its pursuit would consume.

To have the freedom to push my body until it failed.

Heal it.

Strengthen it.

Then push farther.

No constant quotas.

No tolerable margins.

No need to restrain every breakthrough merely because my Essence was yet young enough to damage itself through developing itself.

All of that waited beyond one threshold.

First things first, however...

Forming the [Vitality] Aspect.

I moved my hand once more.

The threads surrounding me expanded.

My [Will] fed them.

Gold thickened from lines barely wider than a strand of hair into a band of pulsing light.

The circle widened until it enclosed my entire body.

It rose.

Tilted.

Rotated around me in a slow orbit.

One halo became several as the strand folded through different angles, though every apparent division remained part of the same continuous manifestation.

A framework of golden [Vitality].

A structure woven from everything I had spent the previous years attempting to understand.

Once enough had manifested...

I drew it inward.

The halos contracted.

Gold passed through my uniform without interacting with the fabric.

It entered my skin.

Muscles.

Blood.

Bones.

Nerves.

Organs.

Wings.

The pulsing light vanished from the air and reappeared throughout my body.

For one instant...

My entire physical vessel felt as if it had ignited.

No burning.

No damage.

Energy.

Boundless energy.

Every cell became more present beneath my [Awareness].

Every tissue more capable of acting.

My heart contracted with greater certainty.

Blood flowed.

My lungs remained still, yet the structures within them felt ready to resume their function at the slightest demand.

My wings tightened.

My muscles carried an abundance that begged to become motion.

This was what [Vitality] was.

The [Energy] of [Life].

An elementary definition.

Useful enough to provide an entry point.

Insufficient for nearly everything else.

[Energy] alone was not [Vitality].

A corpse could contain [Energy].

A flame possessed [Energy].

An [Ether] machine could store and expend it.

Even the Essence constituting the environment contained possibilities for motion, transformation, and work.

But none of those necessarily lived.

[Vitality] wasn't merely [Energy] existing within a biological structure either.

Nutrients provided [Energy].

Blood transported it.

Cells stored and converted it.

Yet a living system could possess all the [Energy] it required and still fail because it no longer retained the capacity to organize that energy toward continued existence.

[Vitality] was the capacity through which [Life] transformed what it possessed into persistence.

It allowed a structure to resist deterioration.

Not through absolute preservation.

Preservation without change became rigidity.

Rigidity eventually became fragility.

It allowed [Recovery].

Not through indiscriminate renewal.

Renewal without restraint destroyed the identity of what it sought to restore.

It allowed [Adaptation].

Not through endless transformation.

[Adaptation] without continuity ceased to preserve the existence that had adapted.

It mobilized resources.

But couldn't mistake expenditure for sustainability.

It supported [Growth].

But wasn't [Growth].

It restored health.

But wasn't health.

It opposed [Death].

But wasn't survival at any cost.

A living structure could sacrifice portions of itself and express immense [Vitality].

Another could preserve every individual cell while losing the organization that made those cells part of one existence.

[Vitality] passed through every one of those processes without being reducible to any.

[Energy].

[Persistence].

[Recovery].

[Adaptation].

[Identity].

[Control]led [Destruction].

[Renewal].

[Resilience].

[Coordination] between parts whose individual interests could conflict with the continued existence of the whole.

The capacity to endure a consequence without being diminished beyond [Recovery].

The capacity to change without losing what made continuation meaningful.

The capacity to turn damage, strain, scarcity, and hostile conditions into responses that prolonged the ability to respond again.

My concept contained all of it.

Not as a list.

Not anymore.

The principles overlapped.

Corrected one another.

Gave one another context.

Preservation limited uncontrolled renewal.

[Renewal] prevented preservation from becoming stagnation.

[Identity] constrained [Adaptation].

[Adaptation] kept [Identity] compatible with changing circumstances.

Resource mobilization allowed immediate resistance.

Sustainable capacity prevented immediate resistance from consuming the future.

Every part remained incomplete in isolation.

Together...

They became something coherent.

My [Vitality] coursed through me.

My [Awareness] expanded to its limits.

The golden manifestation touched every cell I could perceive.

It entered my physiological [Cultivation] [Cycle].

Not replacing it.

Not yet.

Following it.

My body drew energy from my reserves.

Held it.

Transformed it.

Distributed it.

Used it.

Expelled what no longer served.

My [Vitality] reinforced every stage.

The [Cycle] grew stronger.

More stable.

More capable of recovering from its own exertion.

I breathed without breathing.

Subsisted without food.

Sustained tissues whose ordinary biological processes I had reduced to a fraction of what they once required.

All through practices developed before my [Vitality] had become capable of assisting them.

The new concept fit among them.

Almost.

Minute conflicts appeared.

One current of [Vitality] promoted greater cellular activity than my reduced metabolism required.

Another interpreted the unnatural dormancy of my lungs as dysfunction.

My heart's continuing contractions appeared unnecessary to portions of my concept that recognized my [Cultivation] [Cycle] could distribute energy without blood.

Meanwhile, other portions considered every deviation from ordinary circulation a threat to systemic [Identity].

My wings reacted differently from my flesh.

Their almost crystalline structures occupied an uncertain boundary between physical biology and Essence externalization.

Some of my [Vitality] entered them as tissue.

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Some treated them as organs.

Some avoided them as manifestations of my Essence.

I observed every conflict.

Corrected what I could.

Allowed the others to remain.

[Perfection] wasn't required.

Only sufficient coherence for my Essence to recognize what I had made as belonging within it.

The halos had disappeared entirely into me.

So I manifested more.

Gold gathered above my palm.

Entered my wrist.

Joined what already [Flow]ed within my body.

Until if over[Flow]ed.

My natural reserves diminished accordingly.

I didn't stop.

The manifestation saturated every system.

My heart.

Vessels.

Nerves.

Muscles.

Bones.

Skin.

Wings.

Lungs.

Digestive tract.

Filtering organs.

Immature reproductive structures.

Every part received enough [Vitality] for its interactions to become unmistakable.

The energy expenditure rose.

My [Will] maintained the concept.

My [Clarity] separated its countless effects.

My [Harmony] preserved their relationships.

My [Purity] identified what truly belonged.

My [Comprehension] grasped the structures formed between [Knowledge].

My [Mastery] commanded everything I understood.

My [Cultivation] directed the practice toward development.

[Guided] corrected me wherever I remained incapable of correcting myself.

Still...

My reserves continued falling.

Until half remained.

Then less.

The golden pulses suffusing my body intensified.

My uniform couldn't conceal them anymore.

Light passed through its pristine white fabric.

Through the four-looped insignia over my chest.

Through my skin.

Every beat of my heart sent gold outward through vessels that no longer merely carried blood.

Every movement of my wings shed faint strands into the air.

I held the manifestation.

My energy approached depletion.

And with it...

The time for academic [Comprehension] ended.

[Vitality] was the [Energy] of [Life].

But my [Vitality] was more.

It was mine.

I ignited my [Ambition].

The Aspect answered like an inferno finding a world of flammable metal.

Pressure erupted beneath my [Will].

My depleted reserves ceased to matter.

Energy came from nothing measurable.

From no nutrient.

No [Cultivation] [Cycle].

No biological reservoir.

Only the insistence that I would continue until what I intended became a reality.

The burden descended.

Heavy.

Growing.

Still less catastrophic than before my [Ambition] advanced.

I bore it.

My [Will] intensified.

Every one of my Aspects rose with it.

And the concept of [Vitality] ceased being an academic structure assembled from [Life] [Knowledge].

It became the expression of my Path that it had always been meant to be.

I had sought [Vitality] because my body was mine.

Because every limitation of my physical vessel restricted what I could attempt.

Because my [Ambition] didn't care whether flesh, Essence, distance, ignorance, or reality itself claimed something was impossible.

It would demand that I attempt it anyway.

[Vitality] was how my body would survive that demand.

How my Path would endure.

It was the answer to every time I pushed until my muscles tore.

Every time I resisted sleep until thought dissolved.

Every time I starved.

Froze.

Bled.

Broked.

Every time I damaged myself to learn where the damage began.

Every time I recovered and returned to do worse.

I had woven [Vitality] from all my Aspects.

My [Will] gave it force.

My [Ambition] gave it direction beyond sufficiency.

My [Cultivation] made every consequence a route toward development.

My [Awareness] allowed me to perceive what [Life] did.

My [Clarity] separated what it was from what I merely believed it to be.

My [Comprehension] grasped the relationships between its countless processes.

My [Mastery] transformed recognition into command.

My [Harmony] made contradictions coexist without destroying the whole.

My [Purity] preserved the direction that made the concept mine.

My [Secrecy] had taught me that what mattered could exist beneath what appeared.

And [Guided]...

[Guided] had been there before all of them.

Before thought.

Before birth.

Before I knew what [Life] was.

Directing me to persist.

To struggle.

To seek warmth.

To feed.

To move.

To persist.

My [Vitality] concept had never been separate from that beginning.

It was the [Comprehension] of why I had survived it.

The [Mastery] of doing so deliberately.

The [Harmony] of every contradictory requirement needed to remain alive.

The [Purity] of a Path that had changed endlessly without ever abandoning its direction.

Struggle.

Overcome.

Extract everything useful.

Add it to my [Foundation].

Then proceed toward the next obstacle.

My overdevelopment disorder was an obstacle.

My incomplete concept of [Vitality] was another.

Neither was permanent.

Nothing before me was.

Gold erupted through my body.

The burden of my [Ambition] climbed.

My [Will] pressed against the limit of my [Will] Aspect.

I pressed back.

Not to advance it.

Not today.

I only needed everything it could currently provide.

The platform trembled beneath me.

Not from external force.

From my wings.

Every crystalline surface had begun vibrating beneath the [Vitality] passing through them.

Their iridescence mixed with gold.

The Pulse Tower's distant patterns answered nothing.

Civilization continued moving kilometers below, unaware that one Aspirant sat near the ceiling attempting to redefine one of the [Foundation]s of her existence.

Good.

This belonged to me.

I reached inward.

Then severed my physiological [Cultivation] [Cycle].

Every established current stopped.

The act was immediate.

Violent not only in implication.

My energy ceased being drawn according to the perfected rhythm I had maintained for years.

It ceased being held.

Transformed.

Distributed.

Expelled.

The self-sustaining system that had long ago replaced breathing as a natural function of my body vanished.

For one moment...

Nothing replaced it.

My tissues continued through momentum.

Stored energy remained.

Blood still moved.

My heart still beat.

But the unseen support upon which every biological process had come to rely disappeared.

Instability propagated.

My temperature shifted.

Energy distribution became uneven.

Cellular functions lost the constant support they had adapted to.

My wings dimmed.

Then I imposed something new.

A [Vitality] [Cultivation] [Cycle].

[Vitality] moved.

Not around the old framework.

In its place.

My [Vitality] drew [Energy].

Not merely as fuel.

As potential for continued existence.

It held that [Energy] according to what my body could sustainably employ.

Transformed it into the capacities each tissue required.

Distributed it not evenly, but coherently.

According to demand.

According to identity.

According to the relationships preserving the whole.

It received the consequences produced by every process.

Heat.

Waste.

Damage.

Depletion.

Structural strain.

Then fed them back into adaptation, recovery, and further function.

A [Cycle].

Not a line from energy to expenditure.

A living circulation in which every consequence became information for what followed.

It worked.

Because of course it did.

Not perfectly.

Damage emerged shortly.

My heart received too much support and contracted hard enough for tiny vessels near it to rupture.

My dormant lungs reacted to the new [Cycle] by attempting to awaken, then failed to coordinate with a respiratory rhythm that didn't exist.

Several regions of my digestive system began mobilizing stored compounds despite there being no need.

My muscles accumulated heat.

The cells near the bases of my wings interpreted the increased flow of conceptual energy as a demand for growth.

Nerve signals accelerated unevenly.

My blood changed viscosity and induced a plethora of wrong biochemistry in its wake.

Bones attempted to reinforce themselves along stress patterns that had already been corrected months ago.

The flaws were extensive.

They accumulated.

But they no longer resembled the indiscriminate catastrophe of my first plantoid test.

They were imperfections.

Misalignments.

Places where my [Comprehension] remained shallow.

Where my [Mastery] lacked precision.

Where my concept understood the needs of [Life] broadly but not the exact expression demanded by this instant.

I corrected them.

My [Clarity] divided every reaction.

My [Awareness] followed them.

My [Comprehension] connected them.

My [Mastery] changed the [Cycle] while it continued.

My [Harmony] prevented one correction from destabilizing ten other systems.

My [Purity] separated what belonged to my [Vitality] from what belonged only to old biological habits.

My [Cultivation] made every flaw another step.

[Guided] filled the spaces between what I could accomplish alone.

My [Vitality] [Cultivation] [Cycle] continued.

One complete circulation.

Then another.

The second was better.

The third better still.

Blood moved through my body, yet the [Cycle] no longer depended entirely upon it.

My heart beat, but no longer stood at the center of every distribution.

My lungs remained dormant without being mistaken for damaged.

My tissues drew what they required.

Released what they couldn't use.

Recovered from the damage caused by the previous circulation.

The [Cycle] fed upon its own consequences without pretending those consequences held no cost.

It sustained.

Adapted.

Continued.

My ordinary reserves had long since vanished.

My [Ambition] supplied what remained.

The pressure became immense.

My [Will] bent beneath it.

It did not break.

The golden light surrounding me dimmed.

A halo reformed without my intention.

Then another.

They rotated around my seated body while the [Vitality] within me traced every pathway of my physical existence.

Then...

Finally...

My Essence reacted.

Not with a pulse.

Not with a ripple.

With [Chaos].

I had experienced advancement disorders.

Aspect synthesis.

Aspect formation.

Essence overdevelopment.

Currents so violent that they distorted every part of my existence.

None resembled this.

The whole of my Essence erupted.

A portion of my [Awareness] slipped into communion instantly.

The platform remained beneath my body.

The upper reaches of the Pulse Tower remained around me.

But at the same time...

I beheld an expanse of [Chaos] greater than anything I had previously experienced.

Every current twisted.

Density events appeared and collapsed before stabilizing.

Existing Aspects flared in response to forces they couldn't interpret.

My [Cultivation] Aspect attempted to direct the change.

[Harmony] spread across the disorder.

[Clarity] illuminated divisions within it.

[Purity] separated what belonged from what didn't.

[Mastery] sought command.

[Comprehension] grasped.

[Will] imposed.

[Ambition] demanded.

[Guided]...

[Guided] was everywhere.

At the center of the [Chaos], something began forming.

Not from the dissolution of an existing Aspect.

Not through the synthesis of pieces torn from multiple ones.

Not through my Essence recognizing a concept that already [Flow]ed through reality and building an internal reflection of it.

This was different.

I wasn't simply forming an Aspect from a concept.

I was forming an Aspect from a concept that had originated from me.

My [Vitality].

Not Xafsa's.

Not the Pulse's.

Not the definition written within an introductory text.

Not a concept countless entities had formed before me.

Mine.

As it began taking shape within my Essence...

So much became evident.

No pieces were missing.

Had some essential principle truly been absent, the concept would never have crossed this threshold.

My Essence couldn't form an Aspect from a structure incapable of representing what it claimed to be.

But completeness didn't mean correctness in every arrangement.

Some pieces were out of place.

[Recovery] held too much authority over preservation in one portion.

[Identity] remained too tightly associated with continuity of material elsewhere.

My concept of [Adaptation] still carried assumptions originating from singular biological vessels.

Resource mobilization stood too close to energy expenditure.

Several corrections specific to my fairy physiology had become entangled with broader principles.

Some pieces were bent.

Forced to fit relationships where a different orientation would have allowed them to settle naturally.

Some were superfluous.

Not false.

Useful during conceptualization.

Necessary for me to reach the [Comprehension] I now possessed.

But not part of [Vitality] itself.

The Aspect formation disorder addressed everything.

Under the [Clarity] of my mind, my Essence shifted each piece.

Not randomly.

According to relationships I had spent years acquiring the [Comprehension] and [Mastery] to recognize.

One principle moved.

Ten others changed around it.

A redundant distinction dissolved.

Its useful implications remained, integrated into a deeper structure.

A contradiction I had accepted as unavoidable unfolded into two expressions of one broader relationship.

My personal [Adaptation]s separated from broader principles without being discarded.

They became applications.

Not definitions.

The concept grew simpler.

And more complex.

Fewer pieces.

Infinitely more relationships.

Then I understood.

This was why Xafsa and the Pulse had insisted so persistently that I form my own concept of [Vitality].

Why copying another's definition wasn't merely discouraged.

Why the process demanded years or decades of [Knowledge], [Comprehension], manifestation, testing, integration, and correction.

This was so much more than forming an Aspect from a concept already [Flow]ing through the Essence that made up reality.

More than resonating with an existing principle until one's Essence reflected it.

My [Vitality] originated from me at another level.

Every piece had been selected through my experiences.

Every relationship tested through my body.

Every error exposed through my [Will].

Every correction integrated through my [Mastery].

The Aspect now forming wasn't merely an internal connection to [Vitality].

It was the crystallization of my [Comprehension] of it.

My [Harmony] of its contradictions.

My [Purity] of what belonged.

My [Clarity] of where everything stood.

My [Cultivation] of how it developed.

My [Will] that forced it to manifest.

My [Ambition] that refused to stop before it became real.

My Path had provided the concept.

The concept had shaped the Aspect.

And the Aspect, as it formed, revealed what the concept had always been attempting to become.

It was... enthralling.

The [Chaos] intensified.

My physical body suffered with it.

My [Vitality] [Cultivation] [Cycle] flickered as its conceptual [Foundation] rearranged itself within my Essence.

One circulation became incompatible with the next.

Gold surged unevenly.

My heart stopped for a fraction of a second.

Restarted.

My nerves fell silent.

Then awakened beneath a more coherent current.

My wings lost all light.

Then blazed.

The damage accumulating inside me multiplied.

And the forming Aspect healed it.

Not deliberately.

Not yet possessing enough stability to act with intent.

Its existence simply made my manifested [Vitality] more real.

Every correction within my Essence propagated into my body.

The [Cycle] adjusted.

The pulsing gold shifted.

What I had [Will]ed into existence for more than a year became increasingly indistinguishable from something my existence naturally produced.

The last superfluous pieces separated.

The final bent relationships straightened.

Everything converged.

The [Chaos] collapsed inward.

One instant, it filled the whole of my Essence.

The next...

It had a center.

A structure.

A presence.

Alive without being [Life].

An Aspect.

Aspect Formed: [Vitality] (Tier 0)

Then everything changed.

All the [Vitality] coursing through my [Cultivation] [Cycle] sublimated.

The gold became thicker.

Not physically.

Conceptually.

Every pulse carried more than before.

More complete relationships.

More accurate distinctions.

More of what my body required and less of what my conscious mind mistakenly believed it required.

It became gentler.

No longer forcing every tissue to interpret an external concept.

It belonged within my Essence, and through my Essence, within every portion of my physical vessel.

It became firmer.

Its structure no longer depended upon my concentration preserving every relationship.

It became more responsive.

A tissue shifted.

The [Vitality] adjusted.

Damage appeared.

It supported [Recovery] without needing me to identify the damage first.

[Energy] became available.

It considered whether that [Energy] could be used sustainably.

A process threatened the whole to preserve one part.

The Aspect opposed the imbalance.

And the cost...

The cost collapsed.

My [Will] had maintained every manifestation before.

Every pulse.

Every conceptual relationship.

Every second of existence.

Now...

My [Will] wasn't maintaining my [Vitality].

My [Vitality] Aspect was.

I could still enhance it.

Direct it.

Force it beyond its natural expression.

But its fundamental existence required no further continuous imposition.

It was part of me.

Of my existence.

The energy previously required to hold the concept together became available for my [Vitality] Aspect itself.

My [Vitality] [Cultivation] [Cycle] stabilized.

My Aspects supported it.

My [Cultivation] Aspect directed it.

My physiological functions integrated around it.

The damage produced by the formation began disappearing.

Ruptured vessels closed.

Overheated tissues cooled.

My heart settled.

Nerves stabilized.

The cells near my wings ceased attempting uncontrolled transformation and instead incorporated the excess energy into repairing flaws so minute I had never bothered correcting them.

One [Cycle] passed.

Another.

My newly formed [Vitality] Aspect continued operating.

Quietly.

Naturally.

My Essence developed around it.

Density events emerged.

New currents spread.

Every existing Aspect reacted to the addition.

[Harmony] integrated.

[Purity] cleansed.

[Mastery] began discovering what command over true [Vitality] meant.

[Comprehension] expanded around an Aspect whose existence revealed more than years of conceptualization had.

[Cultivation] immediately found thousands of applications.

[Ambition] found millions.

And the full extent of my Path presented itself to me.

[Guided] (Origin)

[Cultivation] (Tier 2)

[Comprehension] (Tier 1)

[Awareness] (Tier 2)

[Secrecy] (Tier 0)

[Will] (Tier 3)

[Clarity] (Tier 1)

[Harmony] (Tier 1)

[Ambition] (Tier 1)

[Purity] (Tier 1)

[Mastery] (Tier 0)

[Vitality] (Tier 0)

Twelve Aspects.

One Origin Aspect.

Eleven Path Aspects.

To say my Path remained in its emergence phase would nearly be a lie.

To claim it had stepped within the bounds of the awakening phase would be slightly more accurate.

But why bother employing names created by others to qualify the unique?

Emergence Phase.

Awakening Phase.

Ascendant Phase.

Eminence Phase.

Apotheosis Phase.

Useful categories.

Generalizations built to compare Paths according to the broad degree of structure, development, integration, and authority they possessed.

Perhaps mine still belonged somewhere within them.

For now.

But one day...

Not yet six years had passed since my conception.

Slightly more than five since my birth.

Around four since I joined the Faith and first learned enough of the greater world to understand how little I knew.

Nearly two since I departed the Red Sand Sector alone.

A year and a half since I first entered the Pulse Tower.

And now...

Where was I?

Aspirant of the Pulse Of Eternity.

Eleven Path Aspects formed.

Five of which were formed through synthesis.

Possessor of a physiological [Cultivation] [Cycle] that no longer required me to draw breath or consume nutrients to sustain my physical vessel.

Creator of my own concept of [Vitality].

Bearer of the Aspect formed from it.

Standing at the first major threshold guarding the Pulse's impermanent solutions to my overdevelopment disorder.

The next time I entered Xafsa's office...

The promised records would no longer remain beyond my reach.

Perhaps the solution would disappoint me.

Perhaps it would possess restrictions.

Costs.

Risks.

Perhaps it would only loosen the chains rather than remove them.

It didn't matter.

A chain loosened could be pulled apart.

A restriction understood could be overcome.

A temporary solution could become the [Foundation] for a permanent one.

And beyond that...

My newly formed [Vitality] Aspect pulsed through my body.

My lungs were already unnecessary.

My dependence upon food had long vanished.

My physiological [Cultivation] [Cycle] no longer required conscious maintenance.

How long until I could stop my heartbeat?

How long until blood became an inefficient intermediary rather than a necessity?

How long until I absolved myself of organs whose functions could be carried out through more direct expressions of my Essence, [Cultivation], and [Vitality]?

How long until my physical vessel stopped being something inherited from ordinary fairy biology and became a structure designed entirely around my Path?

My [Ambition] flared.

Bright.

Vast.

The newly formed [Vitality] Aspect answered it.

I slowly stood.

Gold coursed through my body.

Not chaotically.

It bent with every motion.

Flowed around every joint.

Supported every muscle.

Entered my wings and spread through their crystalline structures until their iridescence blazed beneath veins of pulsing gold.

I walked toward the platform's edge.

One step.

Then another.

The ceiling of the Strata waited above me.

The Pulse Tower descended beneath me.

Beyond it, Civilization spread across the constructed world.

Towers.

Platforms.

Roads.

Interests.

Institutions.

Countless entities walking Paths of their own.

All of it lay beneath my feet.

My [Vitality] pulsed.

My [Ambition] burned.

And my Path...

My Path had grown a budding set of wings.