Chapter 87

"So you aren't actually part of the Court?"

The blue-winged fairy across from me laughed.

"I'm sitting in a Court café arguing about Court taxes. Of course I'm part of it."

"You said you weren't a member."

"I'm not a member of a Court faction. That's different."

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"What does the Fairy Court actually do?"

"Depends which fairy you ask."

"I am asking you."

"Then it makes sure giants remember we exist."

The elderly fairy took another sip from her drink.

"And makes sure other fairies remember they're not the only fairies who exist."

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"Joining is easy."

"How easy?"

"You walk into the central hall, prove you're a fairy, register, and choose what degree of affiliation you want."

"What if I don't know my lineage?"

"Then you don't know your lineage."

"And?"

"And nothing. Do you think we throw newborns into the street until they produce genealogical records?"

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"The Court is wonderful."

"Why?"

"They got my workshop back."

"From whom?"

"My former business partner."

"Was your workshop legally yours?"

The fairy hesitated.

"Mostly."

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"The Court is terrible."

"Why?"

"They sided with my sister."

"During what?"

"Our inheritance dispute."

"Was your sister correct?"

The fairy stared at me.

"That's irrelevant."

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"You want a Court disaster?"

"Preferably one where the Court was actually responsible rather than merely present."

"Oh, then look up the Shattered Roost Compact."

"What happened?"

"Three factions asked the Court to arbitrate a territorial dispute. The Court produced a settlement so clever that everyone accepted it."

"That doesn't sound disastrous."

"It was. Six months later, everyone realized the settlement gave all three factions overlapping rights over the same migration infrastructure. So they fought badly enough that nobody calls it a clever settlement anymore."

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"What do I get by formally affiliating?"

"Representation."

"In what?"

"Anything involving fairies."

"That's broad."

"It is supposed to be."

◇ ◈ ◈ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◈ ◈ ◇

"Contacts."

"That's a benefit?"

The hovering merchant stared at me as if I had asked whether wings were useful.

"Contacts are half the reason anyone joins anything."

"I've joined organizations for [Knowledge]."

"Which you got through contacts."

"...Fair."

◇ ◈ ◈ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◈ ◈ ◇

"Do you know every promising young fairy in the district?"

"No."

"Does someone?"

"Probably."

"Can I meet them?"

"Why?"

"I want to find unusually promising fairies whose Paths may benefit from my direct involvement."

The Fairy Court functionary narrowed her eyes.

"That sounds like recruitment."

"It is."

"For what?"

"Something still being developed."

"Then no."

"Why?"

"Because I'm not giving a stranger a list of promising children."

"Even if I'm a child too?"

"Your childish cuteness has no sway over me. And you wouldn't be the first child to cause massive mayhem."

◇ ◈ ◈ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◈ ◈ ◇

Five days passed like that.

I moved between cafés, gardens, public platforms, workshops, open meeting chambers, parks, and whatever other locations my social [Knowledge] and [Guided] suggested would produce useful conversations.

I spoke with fairies who had never formally affiliated with the Court.

Fairies who had.

Fairies who belonged to factions represented through it.

Fairies who worked for it.

Fairies who despised it despite continuing to use its services.

And fairies who seemed incapable of discussing anything for more than five minutes without explaining how the Court had personally saved fairy Society at least three times during events no one else I asked considered particularly important.

The contradictions stopped being confusing once enough of them accumulated.

The Fairy Court was not one thing.

It was a political institution.

A social network.

A diplomatic venue.

A provider of fairy-specific infrastructure.

A repository of lineages and affiliations.

An advocate for fairy interests where fairies represented too small a share of the population to possess much leverage individually.

It arbitrated.

Negotiated.

Connected.

Recorded.

Occasionally interfered where it shouldn't.

Occasionally failed to interfere where it should.

And, inevitably, made enough mistakes over its centuries-long existence for entire libraries to be filled by people explaining how those mistakes could have been avoided.

In other words...

Just another organization.

One run by, for, and optimized around fairies.

My original assumption had also proved correct.

The Court possessed an extensive information network.

It had to.

A political institution couldn't represent fairies it didn't know existed.

Factions such as the Fairy House in the distant and forgotten Red Sand Sector reported births, deaths, movements, affiliations, achievements, disputes, and countless other matters.

Independent fairies appeared in registries.

Promising individuals attracted notice.

High-ranking Court members maintained relationships across districts, Sectors, and realms.

If I wanted to locate interesting fairies...

The Fairy Court could help.

Probably.

Eventually.

Not easily, though.

The information existed, but that didn't mean a fairy Pulse Aspirant could walk into an office and request a convenient list of fairies that could greatly benefit from being [Guided].

Much less a list of the most promising fairies in the Everwell Sector.

Especially after explaining that I intended to recruit them into a still-unformed [Faith].

There were procedures.

Privacy considerations.

Factional interests.

Questions of why I wanted them.

Questions of who I represented.

Questions of whether I might be poaching someone another faction had already invested in.

Questions I could answer.

And others that would only disappear after enough time, reputation, affiliation, or reciprocal interest accumulated.

I could work through that.

I could join.

Establish contacts.

Provide useful services.

Learn who controlled what information.

Trade favors.

Build enough of a position inside the Court for its network to become accessible to me.

But...

That would take time.

An abnormal amount of time for what was only one potential solution to one present problem.

The Creed already had my custom request.

So did the Fate Conclave.

And if neither worked, other approaches remained.

Thus, by the end of my fifth day, I shelved the Fairy Court as a direct method of locating my future Chosen.

I didn't discard it.

I simply shelved it for now.

There was too much useful infrastructure here to forget about it.

And...

I had particularly liked my stay.

Enough that at some point, I had ended up sleeping in the open in one of this court's parks.

That had been unusual.

The park itself occupied several enormous many-colored trees whose trunks twisted upward through the surrounding architecture.

Some were brown.

One possessed bark shifting between violet and gray.

Another was pale blue streaked with bands of white.

A third looked almost metallic until touched, whereupon its soft bark compressed beneath my fingers.

Their leaves were just as varied.

Red.

Silver.

Translucent green.

Deep blue.

Several shades I didn't know how to name accurately.

Fairy-sized platforms hung among their massive branches on ropes, woven fibers, thin chains, or living vines.

Some were simple circles of wood.

Others had cushions, small tables, canopies, or miniature flowerbeds growing directly around their edges.

Flowers filled nearly every empty space.

Along branches.

Across suspended planters.

Around the base of the trees.

On thin vines stretched from platform to platform.

Their scents layered together until my [Awareness] had to separate them deliberately.

I had landed on an unoccupied hanging platform intending only to read a book I was given by someone who sounded like he knew an inordinate lot about the inner workings of the Fairy Court.

Then I stayed.

Then, at some point, [Guided] informed me that sleeping there presented no meaningful disadvantage over finding rented lodging.

So I did.

I woke surrounded by rustling leaves, drifting flower petals, distant wingbeats, and several young fairies arguing over whether someone had cheated at a game I didn't recognize.

It had been...

Nice.

Still, I wasn't going to reorganize my life around that observation.

But I had stopped pretending it wasn't one worth making and remembering in case I came to require such comforts for whatever reason my present self couldn't imagine.

Then my five days were over.

I had an assignment to complete.

So I left.

◇ ◈ ◈ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◈ ◈ ◇

Four hours.

That was how long this Pulse assignment took.

The work itself was straightforward.

A district treatment facility had accumulated enough routine cases to justify temporarily supplementing its personnel with a Pulse Aspirant.

Minor tissue damage.

Overstrained musculature.

A handful of infections.

One damaged sensory organ.

Several cases where [Vitality] wasn't even warranted and ordinary treatment sufficed.

I worked.

Observed unfamiliar biology where available.

Applied pulsing golden [Vitality] when appropriate.

Accepted corrections from the resident healer concerning two species I had never encountered.

Finished my assigned caseload.

Signed the required documentation.

And left.

Overall, those were four hours of useful but unremarkable healing that did not meaningfully deepen my [Comprehension] or [Mastery] of my [Vitality].

Which left me with, at most, eight days before I needed to return to the Pulse Tower and accept another assignment.

More than enough time to do something actually worthwhile.

The question was...

What?

I rose above the treatment facility and hovered while reviewing my options and interrogating my unending yearning for growth and progress, which strangely had become particularly strong to my [Clarity] and [Awareness] as of late.

As such, spurred by my yearning, the first thought that came to my mind was... combat.

The Everwell Sector possessed arenas specifically designed for it.

Some recreational.

Some competitive.

Some intended for professional fighters.

Some offering controlled environments where Essence Entities could pursue fighting [Cultivation] without having to wait for someone to genuinely attempt to kill them.

Which, relatively disappointingly...

Had yet to happen to me here.

Nearly two years in the Everwell Sector.

Where crime demonstrably existed.

Where kidnapping existed.

Where violence existed.

Yet not one of the countless people that I crossed paths with had attacked me.

Nobody had tried to rob me.

Nobody had attempted to abduct me, a tiny fairy with mesmerizing iridescent wings and eyes flying around peripheral districts alone.

Objectively, this was excellent.

Personally, it meant my fighting arts had received embarrassingly little practical combat [Cultivation] in the last two years.

I still practiced with my needle swords, just like I never truly stopped the [Cultivation] of my movements and flight...

But there was an obvious difference between refining an attack against empty air and applying it against something actively trying to prevent me from succeeding.

The little needle dagger I still carried whenever I traveled outside the Pulse Tower demonstrated the issue rather perfectly.

Compact.

Sharp.

Easy to conceal.

And after all this time...

Still pristine.

I drew it halfway from its sheath on a whim.

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The metal reflected the surrounding light without a single meaningful mark.

How odd.

I slid it back.

A combat arena could solve that.

Not necessarily today, though, as another possibility surfaced almost immediately.

Going to the aquatic center again.

And this time, rent my own pool where I could freely [Will] water to [Flow] without accidentally throwing someone into a wall.

I had already learned considerably more about [Flow] since my last—fifth—visit.

Enough that simply observing water [Flow] through my [Awareness] no longer represented the best use of the medium.

I could do more.

Create [Flow]s.

Intersect them.

Maintain them.

Disturb them deliberately.

Use my [Will] to impose [Flow] while attempting to understand precisely how that imposed [Flow] propagated after I stopped directly controlling it.

Then attempt increasingly complicated structures.

That called to me.

More than fighting.

More than visiting a unique library.

More than going back to the court.

Aquatic center it was, then.

I resumed flying while remaining open to alternatives while traveling.

None displaced it.

The reason wasn't difficult to identify.

Forming my [Flow] Aspect remained part of my highest priority, and every increment in my [Comprehension] of it brought me closer to achieving just that.

And in turn, every increment I made toward forming and advancing my [Flow] and [Foundation] Aspects brought me closer to loosening the overdevelopment disorder constricting my Essence development.

Nothing else competed with that.

Not combat.

Not my [Faith].

Not my curiosity.

My [Will] to see my Essence unshackled outweighed all of them.

◇ ◈ ◈ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◈ ◈ ◇

As this visit to the aquatic center was all but impromptu, I hadn't brought my swimsuit.

An easily solvable problem.

The aquatic center conveniently sold them.

I purchased another practical one-piece swimsuit adapted for my wings, changed, stored my Pulse uniform and belongings, and began reviewing the available pools for renting.

Private pools?

Unnecessary, if suitable.

Specialized high-density liquid?

Interesting, but I wanted water.

A broad shallow pool intended for low-gravity rehabilitation?

Wrong depth.

A narrow deep-water pool available for independent reservation?

Perfect.

Three hundred and twenty credits purchased me sixteen hours.

Expensive relative to swimming.

Negligible relative to my pursuit of [Cultivation].

Having long toured the entire aquatic center, I effortlessly found the pool I had rented.

It was small by the aquatic center's standards.

Absurdly large by mine.

Its deepest section descended far enough that the bottom became a darker blur when viewed from the surface.

Smooth walls enclosed the water on every side.

Adjustable currents were available for exercise, but I disabled them.

I wanted still water.

Something whose every movement originated from me.

I dove.

Cool water enclosed my body.

My wings folded tight.

My [Awareness] expanded.

With my [Awareness] Aspect having advanced to Tier 3, it transformed the experience.

The pool ceased being merely a body of water surrounding me.

Pressure changed with depth.

Tiny currents lingered from my entry.

Residual vibrations spread outward from the surface disturbance.

Heat moved gradually between water, walls, and my body.

Every motion I made propagated farther than the physical movement that created it.

I sank until I hovered several meters beneath the surface.

Then stopped.

Stillness returned gradually.

Not perfect, however.

Water moved from microscopic disturbances I couldn't hope to eliminate.

My body heated it.

My heartbeat vibrated through it.

My mere presence displaced it.

Still, good enough.

I extended my [Will] into reality.

The water moved.

Not much.

A narrow stream curled around my hand.

I wasn't touching it.

My [Will] manifested motion, and the water obeyed.

I curved the [Flow] around my wrist.

Across my forearm.

Behind my shoulder.

Then released it.

My [Will] disappeared.

The [Flow] did not.

It continued.

Broadened.

Slowed.

Mixed into the surrounding water.

Simple.

Predictable.

So I decided to complexify it.

This time I created two [Flow]s.

One clockwise around my body.

One counterclockwise farther out.

They met along a shifting boundary.

Friction developed between them.

Tiny vortices formed.

Some collapsed instantly.

Others persisted long enough for my [Awareness] to trace them.

I adjusted.

Not by forcing the entire structure back into the shape I wanted.

That would only test [Will].

Instead, I applied force where the [Flow] structure naturally required correction.

A slight increase here.

A reduction there.

One [Flow] narrowed.

The other widened.

Their boundary stabilized.

Better.

Again.

I released both.

The outer [Flow] retained its momentum longer.

The inner [Flow] fragmented first.

Why?

Radius.

Velocity.

Interaction with my body.

The geometry of the pool.

The precise way I had generated both.

Too many variables.

So I isolated them.

One [Flow].

Repeat.

Change one factor.

Observe.

Again.

Again.

Until I acquired thorough [Mastery] of the relationship.

Then I continued.

A vertical [Flow].

I [Will]ed water upward from beneath me.

A column formed.

Not a solid pillar.

A rising body of water inside water, perceptible only through motion, pressure, suspended particles, and my [Awareness].

It rose.

Reached the surface.

Spread outward.

Then descended along the sides.

As fascinating as ever.

I strengthened it.

The circulation accelerated.

Up through the center.

Across the surface.

Down near the walls.

Along the bottom.

Back inward.

A complete circulation cell.

I let it establish itself.

Then interrupted only one section.

The entire structure changed.

Not immediately everywhere.

The consequence propagated.

A delay.

A [Flow] of changed [Flow].

I watched it move through the system.

My [Comprehension] sharpened.

A [Flow] wasn't merely movement.

It carried the consequences of everything acting upon it.

Direction.

Momentum.

Pressure.

Heat.

Energy.

Disturbance.

One event entered the [Flow], then traveled beyond the place where it happened.

I compressed the rising column.

Narrower.

Faster.

The surface above me bulged.

I widened it.

Slower.

Broader.

Less violent.

Then split it.

Two ascending [Flow]s wound around one another.

A double helix of water that had no visible boundary except where faint differences in pressure and suspended bubbles betrayed it.

I turned one faster.

The structure destabilized.

I corrected it on the fly.

Turned both at different rates.

Observed the resulting shear.

Corrected again.

Then added a descending current through the center.

Three movements.

Two climbing.

One falling.

All occupying neighboring volumes.

Water passing water.

Force meeting force.

Each [Flow] altered the others merely by existing.

I changed the descending [Flow]'s width.

The outer helices tightened.

Reduced its speed.

Then expanded.

I repeated this until I could predict the change before making it.

That was what [Mastery] combined with [Comprehension] achieved

Not making the structure prettier.

Not making it more complicated.

Knowing what [Exertion] would produce the result I intended.

After that, I [Will]ed four [Flow]s into being.

Then six.

Horizontal rings intersecting vertical circulation.

A narrow vortex forming around my body.

Another beyond it rotating the opposite way.

I used my wings as surfaces inside the currents, not to propel myself but to divide what reached me.

Water slipped over their crystalline membranes.

One wing angled upward.

Another downward.

The incoming [Flow] separated.

Leveraging my [Mastery] and my [Comprehension] of both water [Flow]s and [Will] manifestations, I redirected each using as little [Will] as possible.

If I wanted, I could simply force any [Flow] where and how I wanted, but that would have defeated the exercise.

I didn't want [Control]

I wanted [Flow].

So every time I used more [Will] than necessary, I stopped, waited until the water stilled, then tried again.

The amount of force I exerted decreased.

The complexity increased.

A spiral expanded from my left hand, passed beneath my lower wings, divided into four streams, curved outward, then converged above my head.

At first, maintaining it required continuous adjustment.

Then fewer corrections.

Then only one.

Then none.

The [Flow] sustained itself for several seconds before degrading.

I didn't revel in the achievement and pursued my [Cultivation]

This time I altered the geometry.

The spiral rose.

Flattened.

Became a broad rotating disk.

I pushed its center downward while lifting the outside.

A shallow bowl of [Flow]ing water formed within the surrounding pool.

Then I reversed the inner portion.

Counterrotation.

The boundary between both became a ring of turbulence.

I narrowed the ring.

Widened it.

Moved it upward.

Downward.

Made it orbit me diagonally.

My [Awareness] followed every instability.

My [Clarity] separated cause from coincidence.

My [Comprehension] held the relationships.

And my [Mastery]...

[Guided] me toward what needed to be done.

I stopped increasing the complexity.

Instead, I pushed.

Used more energy.

More [Will].

Accomplished more with less.

Until with a mere wave of my hand, the entire water around me began [Flow]ing in [Harmony] with my [Will].

And something within my Essence surged alongside that accomplishment.

I entered partial communion without releasing the water structure I [Will]ed into existence.

My [Awareness] remained split between the spiraling [Flow]s of water embracing me and my Essence.

There.

Ripples centered upon my [Mastery] Aspect.

Typical signs of an advancement disorder.

I let it be and continued to make water [Flow] to my [Will].

A rotating outer ring.

Four ascending streams.

One descending center.

Nothing extreme.

Nothing requiring my full [Focus].

Fitting for observing my Aspect advancement while maintaining exactly the sort of [Cultivation] that had contributed to it.

My [Mastery] Aspect fluctuated.

Some moments sharpened the relationship between intention and execution so drastically that the slightest adjustment produced exactly what I expected.

Others blurred it into uncertainty.

How much force was I meant to use?

Which correction should I begin with?

Was this movement actually necessary?

I compensated as much as I could with heightened [Clarity] of my [Comprehension] of water [Flow].

Hence, the water continued to [Flow].

Yet, something deep within me wanted to push.

I refused.

Not because I lacked the [Will].

Because doing so before my [Mastery] Aspect settled served no [Purpose].

So I waited.

Observed.

Maintained..

Corrected.

Until minutes lost meaning.

Perhaps an hour passed.

Perhaps several.

My [Mastery] Aspect Tier 1 advancement deepened, peaked, then gradually began settling.

My [Mastery] over water [Flow] changed.

Not dramatically.

The improvement manifested in smaller things.

I knew sooner when a correction would become necessary.

I better distinguished between instability that would self-correct and instability that would compound.

I could maintain the same structures while consciously attending to fewer individual details.

Most importantly...

I knew what I truly commanded.

I commanded the relationships necessary for the [Flow] to serve my intended [Purpose].

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

The distinction settled alongside the advancement disorder as my Essence returned to its usual state.

My overdevelopment safety margin had noticeably decreased, but in the wake of my visit to one of the courts of the Fairy Court and my general lesser development over the last few weeks, it was still ample enough to allow any development I could incur.

And beyond that...

My energy reserves were still substantial.

Sixteen hours had been reserved.

I had no assignment to complete.

No patients depending upon me.

No enemy standing nearby.

No disaster requiring my intervention.

Nothing external circumstances demanding I do anything.

Thus it was that I had no reason not to listen to my unending yearning for growth and progress.

Not that I actually needed all or any of these conditions to be fulfilled to truly give in to an occasional extreme-intensity [Cultivation] session when I truly felt like it.

Like now.

With a surging [Will] to touch upon my limits, I [Will]ed the pool to [Flow].

And so water [Flow]ed.

The entire volume of it around me shifted under the distinct [Clarity] of my [Awareness].

Pressure struck my body from every direction as thousands upon thousands of liters accelerated into one broad circular [Flow].

I held myself at its center.

The pool rotated.

Slowly at first.

Then faster.

The surface slanted.

Water climbed the walls.

The center depressed.

My [Awareness] suffused every drop of water present throughout the entirety of the pool, tracing a huge portion of the movement at once.

I imposed more.

The rotation accelerated.

My energy drained.

Just as I wanted.

I created a second [Flow].

Inside the first.

Counterrotating.

The transition between both exploded into turbulence.

Water twisted into countless vortices.

I refused to let them remain chaotic.

My Tier 1 [Mastery] Aspect helped me find the way to achieve that.

Not by imposing my [Will] onto each vortex.

By [Will]ing a structure into existence.

A wide ring.

Rotating waters [Flow]ed silently against one another.

Bubbles formed along the shear layer and spiraled through the pool.

Still I pushed.

The outer [Flow]s climbed.

The inner [Flow]s descended.

Rotation became vertical [Flow]s.

Water rose around the perimeter.

Curved inward along the surface.

Dropped through the center.

Spread across the bottom.

Then rose again.

A torus.

A circulating world surrounding one tiny fairy.

My energy vanished faster and faster.

I didn't care.

I [Will]ed another structure into it.

Four ascending helices wound through the descending center.

They should have been torn apart.

I held them.

One crossed another.

I separated them.

The toroidal circulation distorted.

I corrected only enough to preserve its larger form.

I glimpsed [Flow] in every movement carrying the consequence of the one before it.

And every movement existed because I had [Will]ed it.

Something about this synergy was greater than the sum of its whole.

My [Will] imposed.

[Flow] continued.

I could force water into motion.

But once moving, it possessed consequences beyond the instant of my command.

That meant greater [Mastery] wasn't achieved by imposing everything forever.

It came from imposing the right beginnings.

Creating motion whose own [Flow] carried the result farther than my [Will] needed to.

I changed tactics to reflect that blooming [Insight].

Instead of sustaining the entire pool directly, I began withdrawing my [Will] from portions of it.

The outer circulation remained.

So I removed more.

One helical stream survived through inertia.

Another collapsed.

Why?

I reconstructed it.

Adjusted the entry angle.

Released it again.

This time it survived.

Before long, the pool became a massive puzzle made of momentum.

I supplied force.

Then demanded the water continue without me.

When it failed, I learned why.

When it succeeded, I pushed the structure farther.

Larger.

Faster.

More intricate.

Hours disappeared.

My energy dropped below half.

Then a quarter.

My yearning only grew alongside the effort.

So I pushed myself even further and created resistance.

I increased the pool's rotation until maintaining my position at the center became difficult.

My wings opened.

Water hammered against them.

I [Will]ed myself stationary.

The pool moved.

I did not.

The pressure difference pulled at my body.

I resisted.

Before long, the [Flow]s surrounding me thickened into a roaring system my [Awareness] could barely parse as one whole.

The movements.

The force.

The complexity.

The burden.

My [Will] carried them.

Until it didn't.

One distant segment of the outer current slipped.

Not because my [Mastery] or [Comprehension] failed me.

Because my [Will] Aspect couldn't sustain everything I was demanding.

That was it.

A limit.

I pushed against it.

The current stabilized.

Another failed.

I restored it.

A third weakened.

I forced it back.

My energy plummeted.

The water around me had become a layered storm.

An enormous outer vortex.

A reversed inner ring.

A descending central column.

Helices climbing through it.

Crosscurrents threading between them.

Smaller structures intentionally placed where they could reinforce larger ones.

Every part [Flow]ing.

Every movement interacting.

Until my energy reserves reached the point where, if it were an ordinary-intensity [Cultivation], I would stop.

I knew the threshold intimately.

A little more and my sole recourse would be to call upon my [Ambition].

I didn't stop.

I wasn't merely studying [Flow].

I was striving toward something more.

My [Will] wanted more.

So did I.

My energy bottomed.

My [Ambition] set my Essence ablaze.

A [Flow] of energy arose to fuel my [Will].

And as the pool lurched, the strain that accompanied it went all but forgotten.

Every [Flow] strengthened at once.

My [Awareness] filled with movement so violent that individual [Flow]s threatened to dissolve into one incomprehensible mass.

I refused to let that happen.

I naturally spread my [Ambition] to encompass all my other Aspects relevant to making my refusal a reality.

My [Clarity] Aspect allowed me to keep them separate.

My [Awareness] Aspect never lost track of any individual [Flow].

My [Comprehension] Aspect gave me the [Comprehension] I needed to understand their interactions.

My [Mastery] Aspect let me command all the slightest ||Exertion] that mattered.

Like that, the outer ring accelerated.

I drove it harder.

The inner ring countered.

Harder.

The central column plunged downward with enough force to explode outward across the bottom of the pool before curling upward again.

Harder.

The helices twisted around it.

Harder.

As my [Ambition] blazed, I pushed my [Will] to the limits of what my Tier 3 [Will] Aspect could handle.

Not conceptually.

Physically.

Spiritually.

Like trying to pour an ocean through an opening too narrow to contain it.

I had more [Will].

I knew I did.

I've always known.

But my Aspect could only manifest so much of it into reality at once.

That had always been true.

I had simply never appreciated the distinction this cleanly before.

Would a Tier 4 [Will] Aspect finally allow me to express the entirety of my [Will]?

How much of my [Will] could I make real then?

How precisely?

For how long?

Through how many simultaneous expressions?

I didn't know the answer.

But what I did know...

Was that my Tier 3 [Will] Aspect was not enough.

The entire pool trembled under the weight of my [Will].

But still I pushed harder.

The outer [Flow]s started tearing away from my [Control].

I dragged it back.

The descending column distorted.

Straightened.

One helix collapsed.

I rebuilt it before its remnants dispersed.

I [Will]ed my [Ambition] to give me more energy.

The burden climbed.

I accepted it.

Pain emerged.

I ignored it.

My body started straining under the pressure of remaining at the center of a pool whose every major current was attempting to carry me somewhere else.

I [Will]ed myself still.

My wings flexed.

My limbs trembled.

I remained still.

My Tier 3 [Will] Aspect itself eventually started pushing back after I drove it to the absolute boundary of its present capacity to manifest my [Will].

So I drove my [Will] into that boundary.

Because this was my Path.

Because I've always striven for more.

My [Ambition] surged.

Energy flooded into my [Will] Aspect.

The vortex expanded.

Water climbed higher along the pool walls.

The center dropped until a deep funnel formed above me.

I raised one hand.

And [Will]ed upward.

The descending central current stopped.

For one impossible instant, the entire structure fought itself.

Momentum demanded down.

I demanded up.

The water shuddered.

Then reversed.

A column erupted toward the surface.

It struck the depression at the center of the vortex and burst upward into open air.

Water rose meters above the pool.

Not uncontrolled.

I caught it.

Held it.

Curved it.

A vast arch folded back toward the surface.

Before it could crash down, I divided it.

Two streams.

Four.

Eight.

They descended around the vortex like transparent ribbons, each entering at a different angle, feeding different portions of the circulation.

The pool became a closed system of [Flow]s imposed onto reality through my [Will] alone.

Up.

Out.

Down.

Around.

In.

Up again.

Until... something within my Essence shifted, and a strangely familiar pressure flooded my inner [Awareness].

Then, for what felt like a second, the full extent of my latent [Will] as if spilled into reality, snapped the entire water structure into place with impossible precision.

Which was shortly followed by the inexplicable faltering of my [Will] as a whole, nearly causing the [Flow] I [Will]ed into existence to dissipate.

Somehow, and somewhat fittingly, I held it together through sheer strength of [Will].

Then the strangely familiar pressure transformed into a pulse that passed through my Essence.

Then another.

All localized distortions forming around my [Will] Aspect.

For several seconds, I didn't dare to believe I was truly perceiving the patterns that I was recognizing.

But then I was forced to face the reality unfolding within my Essence and acknowledge that...

After I so relentlessly pushed my [Will] ever onward within the constraints of my overdevelopment disorder...

After I overcame and endured through ordeals that I knew for sure would have made weaker-[Will]ed Entities give up on their Path...

After nearly three years of my Tier 3 [Will] Aspect acting as a cornerstone of my Path...

I had finally given it something it could no longer answer without becoming more.

And as the pool roared around me.

As my [Ambition] burned.

As my [Will] strained against itself.

Deep within my Essence...

My Tier 3 [Will] Aspect had begun to advance toward Tier 4.