Chapter 63

Instead of launching into one last exploration deeper into the Everwell Sector in search of some miraculous opportunity or some piece of intelligence capable of finally breaking the chains of misery I had felt shackled by since arriving in this Sector I had dreamed of reaching...

My mind kept incessantly returning to the week-long ultimatum Xafsa had given me when it came to its offering of a station as its personal aide.

No matter what tower I entered, what organization I observed, or what new possibility I learned of, that offer remained fixed at the center of my considerations.

So, rather than continuing to gather options without end, I found a quiet corner from where I could take in the busy sight of tens of thousands of people going about their lives, and began reviewing what my Path actually required.

Not what appeared interesting.

Not what might eventually prove useful.

What mattered most.

First and foremost...

My overdevelopment disorder.

Until I solved it, every advancement came with an increasingly narrow margin separating growth from death.

Every Aspect synthesis.

Every advancement.

Every intensive [Cultivation].

Even the last two months of semi-regular [Will] healing had steadily eroded that margin.

If I wanted to unleash my potential without continuing to restrain every part of my Path, then I possessed two and a half possible approaches.

The first was the most direct.

Solve my overdevelopment disorder itself.

Determine precisely why my Essence developed beyond what it could safely accommodate, then correct whatever imbalance produced that condition.

An actual solution.

One that would allow me to advance without requiring constant calculations regarding how close I stood to an irreversible failure.

The second approach was less complete, but perhaps more achievable.

[Control].

Not necessarily the [Control] Aspect itself, but something sufficiently adjacent to let me govern the consequences of reaching a critical threshold of Essence overdevelopment.

Essence volatility.

Then Essence mutation.

If I could reduce the likelihood of such mutations proving lethal to nearly zero—or, [Ideal]ly, exactly zero—then the disorder would cease to be an immediate restriction upon my growth.

It would remain unresolved.

But no longer intolerable.

Then came a half-solution that flowed from ignorance more than anything else.

Essence evolution.

I still didn't know what it truly involved.

I didn't know whether it transformed the Essence, the body, the mind, or all three together plus some more.

I didn't know whether it would solve my condition, worsen it, or merely alter its nature.

Despite asking multiple individuals who ought to have possessed at least some relevant [Knowledge], I had received nothing resembling a clear answer.

Not from the Everwell Sector-level Lorekeeper I had the chance to meet.

Not from Xafsa.

Not from any of the Faith members or strangers I had questioned since entering the Everwell Sector.

Essence evolution remained a vast unknown.

But if it represented a fundamental transformation of my Essence, then making headway toward it might change the conditions sustaining my disorder.

Possibly.

That uncertainty was why it counted as only half an approach.

Beyond that highest priority came the next developments already outlined by my Path.

The [Comprehension] Aspect.

Its synthesis felt increasingly inevitable.

I continued to pursue understanding wherever I went.

Every environment provided observations.

Every observation produced questions.

Every question became an opportunity for further [Insight]s.

Eventually, enough of those [Insight]s ought to accumulate into something greater than their individual sum.

Not merely perceiving fragments of [Truth]... but comprehending what bound them together.

I didn't know when that transition would occur, only that continuing as I had would inevitably bring me closer.

Then came the [Vitality] Aspect.

Unlike [Comprehension], its development now possessed a clear institutional path.

If I joined the Pulse, Xafsa and the Pulse would guide me toward synthesizing it.

How that guidance would actually unfold remained unknown, however.

I couldn't even rely on prior studies as the Red Sand Sector had been almost entirely devoid of detailed information regarding high-order Aspects such as [Vitality], [Aura], [Anima], [Mana], and countless others I had only encountered through mentions, demonstrations, or passing references.

I knew their names.

Some of their broad capabilities.

But little else.

The Pulse Of Eternity, however, had surely built entire Seeker sanctuaries' worth of books around the mastery and mysteries of [Vitality] and the [Vitality] Aspect.

If I intended to form it at all, then placing myself under an organization that had studied it for centuries appeared difficult to criticize.

After that came the foundation of my future [Faith].

That objective required less immediate intervention.

I merely needed to continue living in a manner capable of generating [Inspiration].

To make my existence and Path something others could observe, interpret, and perhaps choose to follow.

In time, I would form the [Inspiration] Aspect, and after that, I would advance and synthesize it into the [Exemplar] Aspect, where things would start turning from there.

Compared to solving my overdevelopment disorder, that part of my Path appeared almost simple.

Not easy.

Simply straightforward.

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I only needed to be myself.

Advance.

Accomplish what others considered impossible.

Allow those achievements to become [Inspiration].

And eventually transform into an [Exemplar] when the time was right.

Then came matters of less immediate importance.

[Guided] subsumption.

A personal project with no predictable return.

I still didn't know whether subsuming into [Guided] deepened my Origin Aspect, altered its workings, or merely made me into an inner observer, but it was a line of research I didn't intend to give up until I fully understood what it was about.

That the process might eventually [Cycle] back into unearthing novel [Insight]s on [Guided] Essence [Cultivation] also certainly counted for something.

Which remained another unresolved objective.

I never gave it up.

During the entirety of my journey from the Red Sand Sector to the Everwell Sector, I stubbornly occasionally contemplated how to make [Guided] Essence [Cultivation] a reality in exponentially warped ways.

During flights.

During rests.

During meditation.

During moments when [Guided] acted in ways I couldn't consciously reproduce.

During moments when my mind was so addled by exhaustion that nothing seemed real anymore.

But despite all that time...

I had discovered nothing of substance.

Still no repeatable [Exertion].

Still no clear principles.

Still no method through which I could deliberately strain, refine, or deepen my Origin Aspect.

Only failed possibilities and incomplete theories.

That didn't make the objective worthless.

It merely placed it below those with clearer returns.

Research into [Mystery] belonged in a similar category.

Potentially relevant.

Possibly essential one day.

But presently only slightly more important than researching the hundreds of other Aspects that might further my Path.

Especially now that becoming a trial Aspirant would grant me access to foundational repositories filled with concepts and Aspects I had surely never heard of.

Committing too heavily to [Mystery] before learning what alternatives existed would be like betting on Blitz to further my Path.

Choosing an option because it was visible.

Not because it was best.

By the time I finished arranging those objectives by importance, I once again began wandering away from the Pulse Tower.

Not into another named settlement, though.

There no longer seemed to be any meaningful divisions between settlements here.

Instead, another term gradually took over whenever I asked where I was.

Peripheral districts.

Even though the core of the Sector remained multiple weeks of leisurely flight away, the metropolis that was Everwell Prime had sprawled so far from the Everwell Realm Rift that entire settlements I would once have considered cities had become mere districts along its periphery.

And it wasn't a desolate or incomplete sprawl.

Nothing about it resembled the abandoned extensions or poorly supported outer structures I might have expected from a city that had grown beyond any reasonable scale.

Everywhere I looked, the sprawl functioned.

Food production occupied entire tiers of construction.

Groves of pale trees grew from suspended beds of black soil while workers harvested clusters of translucent fruit from their branches.

In another district, massive shelled creatures remained half-submerged within long channels of green water, feeding upon floating growths while smaller beings collected pieces of flesh that naturally separated from their bodies.

Water flowed through transparent pipes wider than buildings.

Some carried clean currents toward residential towers.

Others transported dark, contaminated fluids into immense recycling complexes whose interiors pulsed with individuals resorting to unfamiliar Aspects.

Market streets extended farther than my [Awareness] could follow.

Goods from the Everwell Realm filled every stall.

Fresh woods.

Colored stones.

Preserved organs.

Living tools.

Fruits that shifted shape when touched.

Fabric grown rather than woven.

Entire carts of refuse moved in one direction while renewed materials moved in the other.

Clinics.

Academies.

Temples.

Guild halls.

Workshops.

Habitations built for species whose bodies required water, heat, darkness, open air, or environments that would have proved lethal to others.

The more down to the ground I flew, the more services I discovered.

Nothing here existed solely because Everwell Prime's center had become overcrowded.

These peripheral districts lived independently.

Produced independently.

Expanded independently.

The Everwell Sector was so developed and had such an abundance of resources that even its periphery possessed everything required to sustain civilizations of its own.

And I had crossed only the beginning of it.

As I observed that scale, my fixation upon entering the Prime Temple began to appear increasingly narrow.

The Prime Temple remained important.

Its Seeker sanctuary might contain the [Knowledge] I sought, after all.

But I had treated it as though it were the only meaningful institution within the Everwell Sector.

As though every other road represented a compromise.

That assumption had never been supported by anything except my own history.

The Prime Temple of the Red Sand Sector had taken me in.

Its Seekers and Sentinels had taught me.

Its sanctuary had shown light on my Path.

But even that had been less a consequence of the Prime Temple being the sole source of such things back in the Red Sand Sector and more a stroke of [Fate].

The harvesting team I encountered within the Red Desert had known about the Temple because they themselves had been guided by it.

So they swore by it when I asked where I could find such guidance.

Had I met different people, I might have entered the Order.

Or a merchant faction.

Very possibly the Fairy House.

Even Red Sand wouldn't have been an impossibility.

Perhaps even an organization or faction I had never learned existed.

I had mistaken the first path opened before me for the natural path everyone ought to follow.

And now, after reaching a Sector containing more institutions than I could reasonably investigate in years, I continued trying to recreate the circumstances of my beginning.

Maybe...

My [Ambition] truly had veiled my perception of my own circumstances.

I wanted the best option.

The fastest one.

The optimal one.

The one that would grant me direct access to everything I lacked.

But no such option had presented itself.

Instead, a perfectly functional path had opened before me only after I spent two months proving that I could endure it.

An Essence Entity recognized by others due to its Pulse Restorer rank had personally evaluated me.

Recognized my potential.

Offered to instruct me.

Would allow me to pursue solving my overdevelopment disorder as an independent research project.

And provided me with a route toward synthesizing the [Vitality] Aspect, earning recognition through acquiring a Pulse rank, and accessing repositories that might contain answers I didn't yet know to seek to begin with.

Rejecting all of that solely because it might take years seemed...

A bit silly.

So what if it took years before I reached a rank at which I would finally find answers to my questions?

Those years wouldn't vanish.

I would continue advancing.

Continue to develop my Essence.

Continue my [Cultivation].

Continue seeking solutions independently.

Every patient would refine my [Awareness].

Every treatment would exercise my [Will].

Every unfamiliar body would provide [Insight].

Every lesson would move me closer to [Vitality].

Every contribution would advance my standing within the Pulse.

Even failure would become more [Knowledge].

Time spent within the Pulse Of Eternity wouldn't be time lost while waiting for permission to progress.

It would be the progress itself.

That conclusion followed me as I turned back.

Less than two days had passed since I left the Pulse Tower.

Xafsa had given me a week.

I had expected to use all of it.

Perhaps more, had the offer permitted it.

Instead, I flew back at a leisurely pace, allowing a surge of [Will]-enhanced [Clarity] to review my resolution one final time.

My foremost objective remained solving my overdevelopment disorder.

Joining the Pulse didn't guarantee that solution.

But neither did wandering farther.

The Pulse offered relevant [Knowledge].

Teachers.

Status.

Access.

A path toward the [Vitality] Aspect.

The freedom to continue searching elsewhere.

And the possibility of formalizing my disorder as a research project.

Its costs were obligation, hierarchy, and time.

All costs I could bear.

I examined every conclusion that I reached again.

Shifted assumptions.

Considered hidden risks.

Imagined alternatives I hadn't encountered.

The result remained unchanged.

By the time the pristine white tower entered my sight, its golden lines pulsing softly from the constructed ground to the ceiling of the Strata, my decision had settled completely.

No hesitation remained.

The Pulse Tower rose before me.

And with it...

The next step of my journey.

This time, not as an outsider searching for answers at the edge of Civilization.

But as the personal aide of a Pulse Restorer.