Chapter 93

The gathering I found myself in was smaller than most I had attended recently.

It took place inside a private residence whose owners had apparently decided that three separate layers of anti-scrying wards, sound isolation, and whatever prevented my [Awareness] from penetrating more than a few centimeters into the surrounding walls constituted an appropriate minimum for discussing money.

Perhaps it was.

The entities around the table certainly behaved as though privacy could be assumed.

So I listened as everyone slowly homed in on the core question that sounded oh-so simple on its surface.

Was said organization worth investing in?

By this point, I knew better than to believe questions like that were simple merely because they fit within one sentence.

Reminding myself of that was even more important when the organization under discussion distributed medical supplies throughout several districts and had recently begun expanding toward the direct peripheral districts of Everwell Prime.

Its revenues were increasing.

So were its transportation costs.

Its largest supplier had recently expanded production.

Its second-largest had lost access to one manufacturing site.

Two new treatment centers were scheduled to open within its prospective service area.

One local authority had announced infrastructure improvements that should reduce delivery times.

Another had begun discussing regulatory changes that could increase storage requirements.

Its debt was manageable.

Its available liquidity wasn't exceptional.

Its management had a good reputation.

Its current valuation had already risen considerably.

Still, everyone present knew more about at least one portion of the situation than I did.

One individual had decades of experience evaluating medical businesses.

Another specialized in transportation.

A third possessed political contacts within one of the districts involved.

The oldest entity present had apparently been investing since before several of the surrounding towers had been constructed.

Their conclusions differed.

So I remained silent and listened.

One considered the organization an obvious beneficiary of rising medical demand.

Another thought transportation costs would consume most of the expected growth.

Someone else believed the infrastructure improvements made that concern temporary.

The politically connected investor argued that the proposed regulatory changes were unlikely to survive their current review process.

Then another pointed out that even if the regulations failed, competitors had already begun purchasing additional storage capacity in anticipation of them.

The discussion grew increasingly elaborate.

Not confused.

Every participant appeared to understand what they were all saying.

They simply disagreed.

I let my [Awareness] encompass the table while [Guided] continued doing what it had done throughout every gathering I attended.

Names connected to organizations.

Organizations connected to prior articles.

Articles connected to transport records, procurement changes, investments, district policies, and everything else I happened to possess within my [Knowledge].

My [Comprehension] followed the relationships.

My [Clarity] separated them.

My [Mastery] prevented me from mistaking a relationship I recognized for one I understood well enough to use.

Nothing unusual.

I had done the same thing hundreds of times by now.

Yet the longer the discussion continued, the less convinced I became that everyone was actually disagreeing about the same thing.

That distinction surfaced gradually.

The medical specialist was discussing whether the organization would sell more supplies.

It probably would.

The transportation specialist was discussing whether each additional sale would remain as profitable under higher distribution costs.

Possibly not.

The politically connected investor was evaluating whether one prospective expense would materialize.

A separate question.

The oldest investor kept returning to the organization's valuation.

Another question again.

I went back through the discussion from the beginning.

A growing organization wasn't necessarily becoming more profitable.

A more profitable organization wasn't necessarily becoming more valuable to a new investor if everyone already knew it would become more profitable.

A regulatory risk disappearing didn't erase the decisions competitors had already made because they expected it to remain.

Improved transportation could lower one cost while simultaneously making the district attractive enough for competition to increase.

Every statement could be correct.

That didn't make every conclusion compatible.

More importantly...

It didn't make them contradictory either.

The distinction settled into place with such ease that I immediately applied it to every argument I had heard.

Fact.

Inference.

Prediction.

Time horizon.

Relevant interest.

Question actually being answered.

The discussion simplified.

Not because information disappeared.

Because it stopped occupying the same conceptual space.

I felt my [Clarity] Aspect stir.

I ignored it.

Someone eventually asked what I thought, presumably because I had spent long enough saying nothing for my silence to become conspicuous.

I explained the problem as I presently understood it.

Not whether the organization was good.

That question was nearly meaningless without qualification.

Its operations could expand while margins deteriorated.

Its total profits could rise while returns on newly invested capital fell.

Its position could strengthen while its present valuation made purchasing into that strength irrational.

The relevant question depended upon what each of them intended to acquire and over what period they expected the decision to justify itself.

From there, I separated the principal uncertainties I thought still mattered.

Transportation costs.

The timing of the new treatment centers.

Competitor storage expansion.

The actual price at which an investment could be entered.

No recommendation.

Not yet.

There wasn't enough [Knowledge] available for [Guided] and me to attain enough certainty to make one.

That answer redirected the gathering for nearly another hour.

Several participants pulled out information they had apparently considered secondary before.

The transportation specialist possessed projections I hadn't seen.

Someone else knew one of the treatment centers was already behind schedule.

The oldest investor had records of what comparable distributors had historically been purchased for.

The political contact knew less about the proposed regulation than everyone had assumed, but substantially more about the infrastructure project.

I listened.

My [Clarity] continued separating.

Not merely true from false.

That would have been easier.

Relevant from irrelevant according to the question being asked.

Observation from interpretation.

Interpretation from prediction.

Prediction from preference.

One time horizon from another.

One Entity's interests from those of the organization being discussed.

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And increasingly, one conceptual layer from the next without losing sight of how they remained connected.

My Essence pulsed.

The sensation was faint enough that I initially attributed it to the ordinary pressure surrounding my [Clarity] Aspect that I had been noticing for months.

Then it happened again.

And this time, I recognized the pattern.

I continued listening for several seconds while part of my [Awareness] turned inward, communing with my supposedly idle Essence.

It wasn't so idle anymore.

The pressure surrounding my [Clarity] Aspect had passed well beyond the threshold into an advancement disorder.

Of course it had...

After I had deliberately refused to dedicate any manner of Essence development toward advancing it.

Apparently, my [Clarity] Aspect had declined to care.

That was almost amusing.

Almost.

I waited until the current discussion reached a natural interruption before excusing myself under the entirely [Truth]ful explanation that one of my Aspects had begun advancing and I preferred not to discover how its advancement disorder interacted with an unfamiliar private residence.

No one objected.

If anything, the announcement produced more interest than I wanted.

Oh well.

That was what I was there for, wasn't I?

◇ ◈ ◈ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◈ ◈ ◇

The flight back toward the Pulse Tower gave me ample opportunity to ascertain that advancing my [Clarity] Aspect wasn't making flying unsafe.

My [Awareness] remained distinct from my sight, hearing, touch, and all the other channels feeding information into my mind, while my thoughts showed no signs of dissolving into confusion.

If anything...

The opposite occurred.

The city became increasingly easy to separate without becoming any less whole.

A transport passed beneath me.

I perceived the vessel.

Its wake.

The people within.

Its intended route according to the network markings.

The physical [Flow] of air displaced around it.

All of those things had always been distinguishable.

But now, their boundaries simply felt cleaner, if not stronger.

By the time I reached the Pulse Tower and returned to one of my secluded sanctuaries, my [Clarity] Aspect's Tier 2 advancement had intensified enough that further social activity would have been inefficient.

Nothing about the experience warranted wasting my time by visiting a medical ward.

So I sat.

Slipped fully into a state of true communion.

And beheld my [Clarity] Aspect as it expanded, fluctuated, and did whatever I had apparently spent the last several months preparing it to do, all while feeling its advancement echo throughout the Aspects entangled with it.

My [Comprehension] rose alongside it as every conclusion I formed exposed more of the distinctions supporting it.

My [Awareness] began haphazardly supplying information whose boundaries became increasingly difficult to preserve as cleanly as before.

My [Harmony] compensated, maintaining the relationships between everything my strengthening [Clarity] kept separating.

Overall, it looked like a thoroughly ordinary Aspect advancement.

My [Clarity] Aspect wasn't suddenly allowing me to glimpse hidden [Truth]s.

It wasn't pushing me toward some transcendental [Trance] where my [Focus] and [Clarity] rose to previously inaccessible heights.

It was simply becoming more of what it already was.

The same [Clarity] whose effects permeated practically every [Cultivation] I carried out, only elevated further.

The same [Clarity] I employed when reading economic records and determining which information within a private archive actually differed from what I already knew.

The same [Clarity] I employed when writing [Contract]s, stripping away pages of needless complication until only the clauses that genuinely mattered remained.

Or when distinguishing a useful relationship from one that merely consumed time.

Or when separating what was fundamental to my Path from what was merely habitual during one of my [Foundation] [Cultivation] sessions.

Or when examining [Flow]s crossing different mediums without mistaking what they carried for the [Flow] itself.

Or when treating patients, studying unfamiliar [Knowledge], scrutinizing my own conclusions...

Or when simply thinking.

That I had never prioritized any dedicated [Clarity] [Cultivation] throughout the last months, yet achieved this advancement regardless, was simply another indication that the [Foundation] of my Path was working as intended.

My [Clarity] Aspect had spent months doing what I had formed it to do across increasingly complicated portions of my existence until, apparently, doing so had become sufficient.

The advancement disorder deepened.

Yet even while observing it, I couldn't help but notice how little of the sensing and thinking my Path had so heavily emphasized depended uniquely on my [Clarity] Aspect alone.

My [Awareness] provided what needed distinguishing.

My [Comprehension] structured those distinctions into something meaningful.

My [Mastery] differentiated between distinctions I merely recognized and those I could actually employ.

My [Harmony] prevented separation from becoming fragmentation.

My Origin Aspect supplied corrections and directed me wherever my own [Knowledge] proved insufficient.

Even my [Purity] remained somewhere along the edge of the entire process, preserving the distinction between something that genuinely belonged within my Path and something that merely happened to be useful under my present circumstances.

Not that this was an unexpected realization.

That, too, was simply another natural consequence of the Path I had designed.

Once, my Aspects had been tools I deliberately invoked one after another because I possessed too little [Mastery], experience, and [Cultivation] time for anything more elegant.

Now, they interacted so naturally that identifying where the contribution of one ended and another began sometimes required genuine deliberate effort.

Not because they had become the same.

Because I had spent months upon months refining the [Foundation] beneath them.

Exploring their individual compatibility with my Path.

Deepening and broadening their synergies.

Designing syntheses around concepts I expected to retain.

Rejecting Aspects whose place I couldn't justify.

Revisiting relationships whenever one of their participants changed.

And allowing repeated [Cultivation] to turn combinations that had once required conscious coordination into ordinary functions of my existence.

I had spent months studying my [Foundation].

And here was another part of it.

Not an Aspect.

Not an isolated practice.

A structure whose individual pieces increasingly strengthened one another simply by performing the roles for which I had incorporated them into my Path.

My [Clarity] Aspect hadn't advanced because I finally decided to develop it.

It advanced because my Path required [Clarity] often enough, deeply enough, and across enough of my existence that deliberately prioritizing it had gradually become unnecessary.

That [Comprehension] hadn't caused the advancement.

It merely allowed me to understand why, after everything I had done over the previous months, the advancement had become inevitable.

While I lost myself in my thoughts, the advancement disorder continued.

I observed it, recorded what I could, and allowed [Guided] to adjust the depth of my communion whenever the instability spreading through my Essence made further examination counterproductive.

Eventually, half a day or so later, the fluctuations began losing intensity.

One final shift passed through the structures surrounding my [Clarity] Aspect.

Then...

Aspect Advanced: [Clarity] (Tier 1) ➞ [Clarity] (Tier 2)

As my [Clarity] Aspect settled after its advancement to Tier 2, I remained in communion just long enough to establish the significance of the aftermath.

My overdevelopment safety margin had, predictably, worsened enough to purchase me another substantial period of unwanted idleness.

But beyond that...

Everything appeared fine.

So I ultimately turned my [Focus] toward my [Clarity] Aspect.

The difference wasn't difficult to perceive, though putting it into words required more care.

My Tier 1 [Clarity] had already made it easier to trace conclusions back toward the observations, assumptions, and [Comprehension]s underlying them.

Now those distinctions possessed more clearly defined boundaries of their own.

The gathering returned to mind.

The organization would grow.

The organization would become more profitable.

The organization would become more valuable.

Investing in the organization at its present valuation would produce an adequate return.

Four statements touching upon the same subject, connected through obvious relationships, yet answering four different questions.

I had already known that.

Nevertheless, now maintaining the distinction between them required almost no deliberate effort.

I then turned my [Clarity] inward, reexploring various [Insight]s.

Something could form part of the [Foundation] of one [Cultivation] without being [Foundation]al to my Path.

Something could be necessary solely because of my overdevelopment disorder without deserving to survive its eventual disappearance.

Something could be deeply integrated without being irreplaceable, while something relatively new could nevertheless support enough of what came afterward to become fundamental surprisingly quickly.

No revolutionary [Comprehension] or [Insight]s.

Just cleaner ones.

More precise ones.

Ones more difficult to accidentally conflate.

I stopped there before my curiosity somehow transformed an advancement I had never intended to prioritize into several days of unnecessary [Clarity] [Cultivation].

There were better applications for it.

One of which had been irritating me for months.

I ended my communion, retrieved the notes accumulated throughout my research into reproducing the effects I required from the [Serenity] Aspect, and began going through them again.

I had already long since abandoned any expectation of reproducing the concept of [Serenity] itself.

That wasn't the problem.

The problem was that even after separating the effects I wanted from the Aspect producing them, the available [Knowledge] remained frustratingly entangled.

An Entity who formed the [Serenity] Aspect could describe one application as calming Essence disturbances.

Another source could attribute the same result to preventing their propagation.

A third treated both as consequences of entering a particular meditative state.

Then [Harmony] appeared somewhere in the methodology.

[Flow] somewhere else.

[Purity] in a distantly related case.

And after enough layers accumulated, determining whether two sources described the same mechanism through different conceptual frameworks or genuinely different mechanisms producing similar outcomes became unnecessarily difficult.

Therefore, I put my newly advanced Tier 2 [Clarity] to the test.

Effects.

Mechanisms.

Supporting conditions.

Conceptual properties of [Serenity] itself.

Practices merely developed around the Aspect.

Interactions with other Aspects.

Correlations that might or might not represent dependencies.

I had distinguished all of those before.

Now, though, I could preserve those distinctions across far larger portions of my accumulated [Knowledge] without repeatedly reconstructing them.

So I reorganized.

Not everything.

That would have taken days.

Only enough for the shape of my current ignorance to become clearer.

Some of the effects I required appeared increasingly compatible with sufficiently advanced [Flow].

Others aligned more naturally with [Harmony].

[Purity], [Mastery], [Clarity] itself, and several practices I hadn't yet investigated deeply enough remained relevant elsewhere.

None individually replaced [Serenity].

I already knew and expected that.

Together...

Perhaps.

But that conclusion remained far too premature to deserve anything stronger than a note in the margin.

What mattered for now was that I no longer needed to treat my remaining uncertainty as one enormous unidentified absence.

I possessed parts.

Different questions.

Different prospective answers.

And several places where my [Knowledge] remained insufficient to tell which was which.

Much better.

I closed my notes with a clearer sense of the [Purpose] each piece would have to serve if I was to forge a third weapon capable of breaking the chains imposed by my overdevelopment disorder.

My Essence wouldn't tolerate meaningful [Cultivation] for some time yet, so there was little reason to continue merely because my newly advanced [Clarity] made the research more pleasant.

Archives existed.

So did [Contract]s, relationships, books, and several economic matters that could occupy the interval without significantly developing my Essence.

Before turning toward any of them, however, my thoughts returned briefly to the advancement itself and its deeper implications, which came to me with crystal-[Clarity] even if I didn't chase after them.

I hadn't pursued it.

Hadn't scheduled dedicated [Clarity] [Cultivation].

Hadn't sacrificed portions of my safety margin attempting to force the Aspect upward.

I had simply continued employing the [Clarity] granted by my Path wherever I required it, while every surrounding Aspect did the same according to its own role.

And eventually...

That had proven enough.

The more I considered it, the more appropriate that seemed.

For months, I had been dissecting my [Foundation] by asking what my Path truly rested upon.

Apparently, one answer was something I had spent years deliberately constructing without ever naming it as such.

Not merely strong individual Aspects.

Relationships strong enough that using my Path as intended naturally developed the Aspects composing it.

My [Clarity] Aspect had advanced because it belonged within that structure.

Because my [Awareness], [Comprehension], [Harmony], [Mastery], Origin Aspect, and everything else surrounding it continually gave it reasons to express what it was.

And because after years of [Cultivation], those expressions no longer needed to be arranged one by one.

They simply happened.

I let that [Comprehension] settle.

Then followed it a little deeper.

A [Foundation] wasn't merely what remained underneath everything else.

It was what allowed everything resting upon it to keep growing without needing to be rebuilt each time.

That...

Deserved some more contemplation.

Not now, though.

My Essence had already received enough development for a week and more.

Still, when my safety margin recovered...

I knew exactly where my next [Foundation] [Cultivation] session would begin.