Chapter 66

By the time I woke from my sixth proper sleep within the Pulse Tower, the unfamiliarity of my new routine had all but vanished.

I checked the state of my body.

Communed briefly with my Essence.

Confirmed that my Essence overdevelopment safety margin remained stable.

Then dressed, gathered the notes I had left scattered throughout my room, and returned to the Aspirant repositories.

There was always more to study.

More injuries.

More diseases.

More body structures whose existence contradicted assumptions I hadn't known I possessed.

More healing methods that worked perfectly upon one patient and became actively harmful when applied to another.

The repositories had proven bottomless in that regard, even when they were but the ones accessible to the lowest-rank members of the Pulse.

Even their foundational sections contained enough [Knowledge] to occupy me for years...

Had I been a normal trial Aspirant, that was.

I had therefore begun organizing my studies not by interest, not by whatever subject happened to produce the most immediate [Insight]s, but instead, by deficiency.

By what ignorance was most likely to cause me to misdiagnose or harm a patient.

Which, relatively unsurprisingly, repeatedly led me to the same point of failure.

Species studies.

Within the Red Sand Sector, learning a patient's species had often been sufficient to acquire a useful expectation of their anatomy and biology.

Humans were Humans.

Fairies were Fairies.

Oruns were Oruns.

The comparatively few species inhabiting Red Sand Rift City were documented through similarly direct categories.

A name.

A general anatomy.

A list of common deviations.

Any healer that earned their qualification only had to memorize those to remain reasonably effective.

That habit had followed me into the Everwell Sector.

Whenever I encountered an unfamiliar patient, my first instinct remained to ask what species they belonged to.

Then search for that species.

Then study whatever the Pulse had recorded about it.

Xafsa had taught me otherwise.

Species [Knowledge] was still relevant, but...

It wasn't reliable enough to stand first anymore.

Not here.

Too many species had been altered by Realm influence.

By artificial adaptation.

By divergent Paths.

By inherited Aspects.

By deliberate biological redesign—whatever that was.

By Essence corruption that had stabilized across generations until it ceased to be considered corruption at all.

In the Everwell Sector, Xafsa told me that two individuals belonging to the same species could possess sufficiently different internal structures that treating one according to the other's anatomy was simply nonsensical.

Conversely, two beings with no shared ancestry could function similarly enough for the same medical principles to apply to both.

That was why the Pulse relied upon another system.

Morphotype.

Physiological class.

I had understood the definitions days ago.

Understanding how to actually think through them had taken longer.

Morphotype described the body's physical arrangement.

Its shape.

Its architecture.

Where its major structures were positioned relative to one another.

Humanoid.

Quadrupedal.

Serpentine.

Radial.

Segmented.

Amorphous.

Colonial.

A being with a humanoid morphotype possessed an upright central body, a distinct upper region, and limbs arranged in a broadly familiar pattern.

That didn't mean it possessed a human skeleton.

Or blood.

Or flesh.

Or even organs.

It only described the visible and structural arrangement through which an Essence Entity's physical vessel interacted with the world.

In summary, morphotype suggested where to look.

Then came physiological class, which determined what one ought to expect once getting a deeper look inside.

Mammalian.

Insectoid.

Molluscoid.

Lithoid.

Crystalloid.

Plantoid.

Fungoid.

Distributed.

Core-based.

A physiological class described the principles through which a physical vessel functioned and remained alive.

How it transported energy or nutrients.

How it processed damage.

Where cognition resided.

What structures were essential.

How recovery occurred.

A humanoid morphotype could possess a mammalian physiology as much as it could have a crystalloid or plantoid one.

The same outward arrangement.

Entirely different internal realities.

Likewise, a lithoid physiology could appear humanoid, quadrupedal, radial, or as an immobile mass integrated into a wall.

The material and function remained related.

The shape didn't.

Beyond these two classifications, which I found could already encompass all of the species which I had learned the biological design of by heart, the Pulse had even accounted for exceptional deviations through traits, in case the combination of morphology and physiology failed to suffice.

Endoskeletal.

Exoskeletal.

Hydrostatic.

Distributed cognition.

Dual circulation.

Core dependency.

Symbiotic organ systems.

Aspect-sustained metabolism.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Necessarily, the result wasn't a perfect description.

Nothing involving [Life] ever appeared to be.

But it gave healers a structured way to approach the unknown.

Morphotype suggested where structures might be.

Physiological class suggested what those structures might do.

Traits explained where the patient deviated from both.

It was such a rational classification system...

But as I sat within an anatomical alcove surrounded by open texts, comparison diagrams, and three preserved replicas of beings that looked almost identical from the outside...

I truly understood why this classification system was not any easier than learning species by species.

All three of the replicas possessed a humanoid morphotype, the most widespread morphotype for reasons that were succinctly alluded to as being extremely complex, but without any dedicated texts available to prove that point in the Aspirant repositories.

The first was of mammalian physiology—my own physiology.

The second, insectoid.

The third, a colonial fungoid organism whose apparent body was composed of thousands of specialized growths behaving as one individual.

Same arrangement.

Different functions.

The first possessed a centralized brain and closed circulatory system.

The second relied upon distributed nerve clusters and an open internal fluid network.

The third possessed no singular brain at all.

Destroying the head would kill the first.

Possibly cripple the second.

Barely inconvenience the third.

I turned to the next comparison, shifting all the replicas to ones relevant to what the newly-turned pages were addressing.

Two beings with radial morphotypes.

One molluscoid.

One crystalloid.

Both possessed six primary limbs.

Both transported nutrients through branching channels.

Both could survive the loss of half their body mass.

Yet one recovered by redistributing living tissue.

The other restored itself by reestablishing resonance across a damaged crystalline lattice.

Same visible injury.

Different failure points.

Different treatment.

Different definition of recovery.

[Insight]s incessantly formed one after another, causing very real Essence development as I endeavored to acquire a [Mastery] of this classification system that was so much more than merely a way to classify biologies.

It was a way to prevent assumptions from becoming diagnoses.

A reminder that resemblance only established probability.

Never equivalence.

I then read a case record involving two closely related species whose internal organs occupied mirrored positions.

A healer had relied upon species identification without confirming morphotype variation.

They had opened the wrong side of the patient.

Another record concerned two completely unrelated aquatic organisms whose hydrostatic physiology made the same pressure-stabilization method applicable to both.

Different ancestry.

Shared function.

A third described a plantoid whose humanoid morphotype had caused several healers to mistake its central nutrient reservoir for a heart.

It wasn't.

Its actual vital system spread through every rootlike filament beneath its skin.

Cutting out the apparent organ would have done nothing except remove stored nutrients.

The more cases I read, the greater the [Clarity] with which I observed this classification system unfold.

If species was a ten-thousand-page-long story that referenced all one could ever wish to know about a certain biology.

Then morphotype described structure in barely a dozen pages.

Physiology described function in approximately a hundred pages.

And traits describe the exceptionality of an individual amongst every other in either a single sentence or a couple of pages.

The more clearly I understood the underlying intellectual framework, the more everything made sense in hindsight...

Like why Xafsa refused to accept assumptions based upon visible symmetry.

Why [Purity] could mislead my [Awareness] when I interpreted something as foreign merely because it no longer belonged where I found it.

Why similar symptoms could originate from unrelated failures.

Why identical injuries could require contradictory treatments.

Why understanding anatomy didn't equate to understanding biology.

Why understanding biology still didn't equate to understanding [Life].

Each answer connected to another.

Each connection exposed a broader pattern...

Until the accumulation of [Insight]s reached a threshold where each new realization did more than add another fragment to what I knew.

It reorganized everything beneath it.

The case records.

Xafsa's corrections.

My failures during the qualification trial.

The distinction between seeing damage and understanding what that damage meant.

All of it stopped existing as individual [Insight]s.

They became one coherent whole.

And I simply understood.

Not merely this new classification system.

I understood the difference between making many correct observations and grasping the structure that made them correct.

The difference between accumulating fragments of [Truth]...

And touching upon the [Comprehension] that bound them all together.

The shift occurred before I consciously knew it.

My [Insight]s abruptly surged by what felt like the millions, rippling throughout my entire Essence, drawing every [Insight] I ever had towards the forefront of my mind.

My [Clarity] and [Harmony] were summarily overwhelmed and swallowed up by three exponential Tiers' worth of accumulated [Insight]s into the Essence of reality and my Path, leaving me with but the barest of ability to think.

Subconsciously, I began communing with my Essence.

My [Awareness] of my surroundings faded, receding beneath a seemingly endless rush of [Insight]s.

Countless accumulated realizations.

Connections formed between observations.

Moments when what had been hidden became clear.

Everything my [Insight] Aspect had revealed, since my first spark of consciousness came to be...

The Aspect synthesis phenomenon pulled all those fragments inward, forcing them to relate not merely to one another, but to the structures they implied.

And from it, the first wisps of the concept of [Comprehension] emerged, encompassing everything.

There was no reason to preserve both Aspects.

Their concepts converged too naturally.

Too completely.

A convergent synthesis was the only Path forward.

My [Insight] Aspect would not remain beside [Comprehension].

It would become it.

Before surrendering myself fully to the process, I broke communion just enough to act.

I retrieved my identification marker and twisted its upper-right corner just as I was taught to do when an event transpired that would otherwise prevent me from attending my duties.

[Ether]—[Craft] [Energy]—shenanigans, I was told it was all about.

With that settled, I returned all my available [Clarity] and [Focus] to my true communion.

My Tier 3 [Insight] Aspect was unfolding beneath my scrutiny.

Every [Insight] I had ever accumulated appeared to participate.

Not as individual memories.

As pathways.

The realization that [Purity] depended upon context.

The understanding that [Harmony] didn't erase difference, but organized it.

The discovery that my [Ambition] could allow me to bear burdens beyond the energy sustaining me.

The countless medical corrections Xafsa had forced upon me.

The routes, dangers, settlements, and environments I had observed throughout my journey.

Each became part of something wider.

A framework capable of holding them.

The concept of [Insight] I formed when I was still but a helpless newborn simply exceeded the boundaries that had defined it.

Its individual revelations deepened into understanding.

Its connections widened into systems.

Its answers began including the reasons behind themselves.

More in width.

More in depth.

More in...

Everything.

I observed for as long as observation remained possible.

Until even that distinction blurred, as watching the synthesis became a part of comprehending it.

Understanding its transformation furthered the transformation itself.

A self-reinforcing [Cycle].

[Insight]s about [Comprehension].

[Comprehension] of those [Insight]s.

Each folding into the other until separating origin from result became pointless.

That the process carried semblance of echoes to the process of being subsumed into my Origin Aspect only caused me to further lose myself and for my [Clarity] of thinking to slowly dissolve until only the barest of my core desire to record everything occurring remained.

This went on to last until the process finally ended.

Not with a final surge of [Insight]s

Not with an explosion of [Comprehension].

The Aspect synthesis phenomenon simply reached completion.

Fluidly.

Seamlessly.

As though [Insight] had only ever been an incomplete concept waiting to expand into what it had now become.

Aspect Lost: [Insight] (Tier 3)

Aspect Formed: [Comprehension] (Tier 0)

Just like that, all that was once my [Insight] Aspect had converged into the [Comprehension] Aspect.

Nothing it had contained was gone.

Every [Insight] remained.

Every connection.

And as my newly synthesized [Comprehension] Aspect settled into every place my [Insight] Aspect had once occupied...

My [Awareness] expanded, supplying me with observations...

My [Clarity] reformed, separating confusion from what mattered...

My [Harmony] exposed all manner of relationships...

And what emerged at the end were no longer isolated [Insight]s.

Everything became part of various underlying [Comprehension]s that encompassed all I could think of.

My [Comprehension] of my surroundings.

My [Comprehension] of my physical vessel.

My [Comprehension] of my present study plan.

My [Comprehension] of the morphotype, physiology, and trait classification system...

Before surfacing from my deep true communion, I inspected the renewed state of my Essence.

[Guided] (Origin)

[Cultivation] (Tier 1)

[Comprehension] (Tier 0)

[Awareness] (Tier 2)

[Secrecy] (Tier 0)

[Will] (Tier 3)

[Clarity] (Tier 0)

[Harmony] (Tier 1)

[Ambition] (Tier 0)

[Purity] (Tier 0)

First came the state of my Path.

One fewer Fundamental Tier 3 Aspect.

One newly formed First Order Tier 0 Aspect.

Then came the state of my overdevelopment disorder.

Expectedly, the Aspect synthesis had consumed a non-insignificant portion of my safety margin.

Still...

The margin remained sufficiently broad that I wouldn't need to completely alter my [Cultivation] routine.

I would merely have to abstain from its dispensable parts causing unnecessary Essence development.

In other words...

Over the following few weeks, I would just have to dedicate most of my study periods to the likes of researching the [Mastery] Aspect, rewriting an exemplary of "The Nascence Of Solaena" while writing its most recent chapter, or figuring out how to optimally establish my [Faith] within this simultaneously immense and exceedingly complex Sector.

All low-priority topics I had difficulties finding the time for.

Temporary conclusion reached, I ended my communion and fully reconnected with my [Awareness] of the world, allowing even the faintest sounds rippling through the Aspirant repository to reach my ears.

Pages turning.

Footsteps.

Quiet discussions.

The ordinary movements of trial Aspirants and Aspirants continuing their studies.

I checked the time on the nearest clock.

Only Xafsa's first scheduled procedure had passed.

So I gathered my things.

I still had duties to attend to.