Chapter 69

I woke for the twelfth time since entering the Everwell Sector.

Twelve proper slumbers.

Which, comparing the date of my arrival to the present day, conveniently made for around twelve weeks since my arrival.

My waking periods had lengthened so considerably since I spent more than a year undergoing continuous exhaustion resistance [Cultivation] that I could now remain awake for an entire eight days before the first signs of exhaustion made themselves known.

Slower thoughts.

Faint lapses in concentration.

Minute delays between perception, decision, and action.

The beginnings of physical heaviness.

Nothing severe, really.

As in, nothing I couldn't suppress through my [Clarity], [Will], and the exhaustion resistance I had already cultivated.

However, suppressing those early signs of exhaustion no longer provided meaningful progress by itself.

To significantly improve my resistance, I would have to continue resisting for at least another week after their onset, allowing my exhaustion to accumulate until every action became an unending contest between my [Will] and my body and mind's demand for rest.

Useful.

But not useful enough compared to my studies, my work beneath Xafsa, my research and meditation on the [Mastery] Aspect, and all the other [Cultivation]s presently competing for the limited time and Essence development I could sustain.

So, after eight days awake, I allowed myself to sleep to both eliminate any risk of unwanted Essence development from continuing my exhaustion resistance [Cultivation] and not impact my intended Essence development.

After my consciousness stirred back to the world of consciousness, I remained still only long enough to evaluate the state of my mind and body.

My thoughts formed with standard [Clarity].

My memories aligned with proper [Harmony].

My [Awareness] expanded through my body and outside of it without encountering any meaningful distortion.

My muscular tension remained even.

My wing joints moved through their complete range without discomfort.

My [Cultivation] [Cycle] flowed without interruption.

Perfect.

I communed with my Essence next, immersing myself in the intimate expression of my existence and inspecting the state of its development as closely as my current [Comprehension] allowed.

No instability.

No unexpected advancement.

No sign that an involuntary [Cultivation] had narrowed my overdevelopment safety margin while I slept.

In fact...

The margin had grown somewhat too extensive.

Not dangerously so.

The opposite.

I had been conservative enough with my Essence development that I now possessed more room than necessary between my present state and the threshold beyond which overdevelopment would once again become a critical disorder rather than a manageable condition used as an unknown form of Essence [Cultivation].

I retained that conclusion while finishing the rest of my waking routine, changed into my pristine trial Aspirant uniform, confirmed that every tool and note within its small pockets remained where it ought to be, then left my secluded room.

With my two-month integration period long behind me, my routine within the Pulse Tower had significantly changed.

My duties no longer consisted of performing every menial task that could conceivably be assigned to Xafsa's personal aide.

I no longer personally cleaned every treatment chamber after use.

I no longer carried every instrument to the appropriate sterilization department.

I no longer sorted biological remnants, delivered routine notices, or supervised employees through procedures they had already performed hundreds of times.

Instead, nearly all my duties had become relevant to Xafsa in some way.

As they should have been from the beginning.

I was its personal aide, after all.

My work therefore revolved around preparing for its procedures, managing its schedule, examining patients before and after treatment, identifying anything that deserved its attention, recording its decisions, coordinating with the assistants and auxiliaries assigned to implement them, and ensuring that nothing requiring a Restorer's intervention was lost amidst the countless lower-priority matters filling the Tower.

It was significantly more efficient.

It also meant that, despite my relatively long slumber, I remained several hours away from needing to assume my duties.

There was no reason to waste them.

Rather than descend through the inner corridors and lifts, I entered one of the narrow fairy-sized passages constructed throughout the outer walls of the Tower.

A short flight through its gently curving interior brought me outside.

Golden lines pulsed through the pristine white surface around me, stretching both upward and downward until distance reduced them to threads of light.

Far below, the peripheral district glittered with countless towers, illuminated roads, suspended structures, moving vehicles, and other examples of infrastructure that would have occupied my attention for hours when I first arrived.

I didn't spare it a glance.

The district remained impressive.

It simply wasn't unfamiliar anymore.

And after beholding Everwell Prime during the festival, with its immeasurable crowds, impossible architecture, endless services, and entire organizations dedicated to cultivating experiences I had barely known existed...

A glittering peripheral district surrounding a Pulse Tower had lost much of its capacity to inspire awe.

It was part of my life now.

So I turned upward, accelerated through the fairy-sized passage adjoining the Tower's exterior, and reached the Aspirant repository floors shortly thereafter.

The books I had been reading eight hours ago remained where I had returned them.

"Comparative Arboreal And Floral Plantoid Physiologies", volume three of nine.

I retrieved them all one by one, returned to the small reading alcove I had claimed for myself over the previous weeks, and resumed where I had stopped.

Root-equivalent sensory structures.

Distributed nutrient cognition.

Seasonal organ shedding.

Sap-pressure regulation.

Symbiotic pollination systems capable of transmitting biological instructions between otherwise separate organisms.

Before the festival, I would have approached those subjects much as I approached everything else within the repositories.

Acquire the [Knowledge].

Integrate the [Insight]s.

Identify practical applications.

Allow [Guided] to correct what deficiencies it could find.

Move on.

I still did all of that.

Only now, I possessed greater [Clarity] regarding where those pieces led.

The festival had not granted me any miraculous [Comprehension] of Civilization.

I still didn't understand why sapients willingly dedicated so much time and effort to pleasures whose only [Purpose] was to be experienced.

I didn't understand why a taste, song, game, performance, or celebration could become important enough for entire organizations to cultivate.

But I had understood something more foundational.

Those things weren't deviations from Civilization.

They were Civilization.

Just as much as towers, institutions, train networks, repositories, healing organizations, laws, trade, and all the other structures I had previously considered more meaningful.

They emerged from desires.

Those desires produced interests.

Those interests produced professions, organizations, conflicts, cooperation, and entire fields of [Knowledge].

Even the most apparently purposeless pleasure could therefore become the origin of systems whose scale and complexity exceeded anything I could presently comprehend.

Ignoring them because they contributed nothing to my immediate advancement would not have made them irrelevant.

It would only have made me ignorant.

And if my Path truly led toward the likes of [Knowledge] and [Truth]...

I couldn't afford to divide existence into what deserved to be understood and what didn't.

Everything had a cause.

Everything produced consequences.

Everything could become another road toward deeper [Comprehension].

Even sweets.

Even festivals.

Even the decision of a flowering plantoid to alter the chemical composition of its nectar according to the species approaching it.

Thus, I read.

Observed the illustrated anatomical structures.

Compared them.

Connected them to the patients I had encountered.

Found contradictions.

Resolved some.

Recorded the rest.

And as my overdevelopment safety margin remained unnecessarily extensive, I allowed my [Ambition] to stir.

Not without constraint.

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But enough.

My [Will] flowed into my [Comprehension], elevating the speed at which I integrated every principle into the wider structures of [Knowledge] already present within me.

More [Will] reinforced my [Clarity], preventing that acceleration from dissolving into an incoherent accumulation of disconnected facts.

Then [Harmony] brought everything together.

New [Insight]s settled beside old ones.

Contradictions remained distinct without becoming disruptive.

Different physiological principles arranged themselves according to where they overlapped, opposed one another, or only appeared similar from an insufficiently precise perspective.

My reading quickened.

So did the [Cultivation] of my [Knowledge].

Not enough to threaten my safety margin.

Enough to stop wasting it.

Hours passed.

When the clock indicated that only ten minutes remained before I needed to assume my duties, I closed the book in the middle of a section detailing how some mobile floral plantoids voluntarily dismantled portions of their own bodies to survive prolonged nutrient deprivation.

I returned it to its assigned place, exited through the nearest fairy passage, and plunged.

Hundreds of floors vanished by me.

Golden lines blurred into continuous streams.

Openings, balconies, maintenance platforms, and exterior passage intersections flashed past as I adjusted my wings through minute movements, keeping close enough to the Tower to remain within the protected flight lane without sacrificing speed.

Four minutes before my shift began, I entered the treatment floors.

I confirmed Xafsa's schedule first.

No last-minute changes.

No emergency procedures inserted.

No patient transfers.

I then moved on to the treatment chamber attributions.

Two chambers required altered atmospheric compositions.

One needed elevated humidity.

Another had to be reinforced against uncontrolled physical movement.

The remaining chambers could maintain standard conditions.

I confirmed that each patient had been attributed appropriately, checked that the assistants responsible for environmental preparation had received the correct instructions, then reviewed the tool distributions.

Three specialized instrument sets had arrived.

One hadn't.

I redirected a spare set from a procedure scheduled later in the period, marked its replacement as urgent, and informed the relevant auxiliary before the absence could become a delay.

Sanitization records.

Complete.

Patient arrival confirmations.

Complete except for one.

Procedure authorizations.

Complete.

Prior treatment reports.

Available.

Potential incompatibilities between patients, compounds, and chamber materials.

None recorded.

I began reviewing the first patient's latest observations just as Xafsa descended from the office floors, right on time.

Like that, another shift as a Pulse trial Aspirant began.

I observed.

Expanded my [Awareness] with a substantial reinforcement of [Will].

Established a [Diagnosis].

Was corrected.

Integrated the correction.

Refined the relevant [Comprehension].

Answered Xafsa's questions.

Was corrected again.

Intervened when instructed.

Held tissue alignment.

Maintained pressure.

Isolated an Essence reaction without disturbing the surrounding biological processes.

Was corrected a third time.

Then oversaw the aftermath.

Instructed the assistants.

Redirected the auxiliaries.

Confirmed environmental requirements.

Updated the records.

Escalated whatever deserved further observation.

And I repeated that...

Patient after patient.

Procedure after procedure.

Some of my diagnoses were correct.

Others were only partially correct.

A few were wrong because I had accurately observed every visible symptom and then connected them through an incomplete physiological model.

Those failures remained the most useful.

They revealed precisely where my [Comprehension] was deficient.

By the time Xafsa's schedule cleared, I had accumulated corrections involving four species, two rare complications caused by prior healing, and one interaction between a patient's [Regeneration] Aspect and a regenerative compound that I would not have recognized even had I observed it for an entire day.

I wrote the overview report.

Patients treated.

Procedures completed.

Resources expended.

Complications encountered.

Interventions performed.

Follow-up instructions issued.

Potential concerns.

Then I was transmitted Xafsa's upcoming schedule, and I began separating everything that could be reviewed immediately from what would require updated patient information closer to the next shift.

"Solaena, would you pass by my office once you have finished your duties?" Xafsa suddenly asked after we wrapped up its schedule for the period.

"Of course," I assented without delay.

It wasn't every day that I was told something that hadn't figured on any schedule or advance notice, but not even the Pulse was immune to the unexpected, so it wasn't anything concerning.

At least, nothing in Xafsa's tone, posture, or sensory filament movements indicated concern.

As such, when Xafsa eventually left, I immediately returned to my work.

An hour later, I had completed every early review and verification that could reasonably be performed regarding my next shift, scheduled to begin twelve hours from then.

The remaining preparations depended upon information that hadn't yet been produced.

So I ascended to the four hundred and fifth floor.

Xafsa's office occupied a quiet section set apart from the primary treatment and administrative routes.

The door somehow recognized my presence through yet another of those [Ether] systems and opened without requiring me to announce myself.

Inside, everything was clean.

Utilitarian.

Ordered.

Paperwork occupied much of the office, but none of it had been left scattered.

Reports, schedules, correspondence, patient records, research notes, and sealed documents had all been arranged into distinct piles across several low work surfaces.

Like the workstation where I first encountered Xafsa, the office had been uniquely adapted to its fibrous crystalloid morphology.

There were no conventional chairs.

The central space remained open, allowing its crystalline body to anchor itself without obstruction.

Broad work surfaces radiated around that position at several heights, while narrow channels between them gave its sensory and manipulative filaments access to every pile without requiring it to rotate or relocate its entire form.

Even the document holders had been designed so that individual sheets could be separated by the slightest filament movement.

Efficient.

I entered and stopped at the nearest empty section of the central surface.

Several of Xafsa's filaments shifted toward a thin stack of papers, not bothering to address my lack of introductory manner.

"You are fortunate in the sense that you were associated with a report read by an Undying. Consequently, your incentive program was completed in record time," it said, similarly not bothering with an introduction and tackling the reason for my presence directly.

Incentive program, though?

That was the first I had heard of this being a thing for trial Aspirants, as none of the trial Aspirants and Aspirants I formed a relationship with mentioned it.

Xafsa separated one sheet from the stack and extended it toward me.

"Here is your structured collection of objectives and corresponding benefits intended to direct the development of members deemed worth individually encouraging, if you are curious."

Xafsa was even kind enough to explain what an incentive program was, in case I wasn't aware.

I made sure [Guided] got it before I accepted the not fairy-sized sheet.

What I quickly read from it was a list of objectives divided according to chronology, priority, estimated difficulty, institutional importance, and dependencies upon other objectives.

Some were simple.

Assume assigned duties flawlessly for one month.

Maintain a presence within the Aspirant repositories exceeding half of available free time.

Others were not.

Advance [Comprehension] to Tier 1.

Form the [Mastery] Aspect.

Form the [Vitality] Aspect.

Attain formal Aspirant rank recognition, towards the end of the sheet

Develop an independently valuable research contribution, at the very end of the list.

Several objectives branched into later ones, with some marked as flexible and others presented as major thresholds that had to be met before entire sections of the program became available.

Complicated.

But readable.

Understandable.

The more interesting issue was what it lacked.

I read the entire sheet once.

Then again, specifically searching for what I might have missed.

Nothing.

"All the objectives I am reading are either things I already do or things I already intend to do," I gave my honest assessment.

"There is also no listed reward. I may have admitted at some point that I would be mostly indifferent to incentives, so if some exist, good, and if they do not, whatever. But what, exactly, is the incentive here?"

"If you expected monetary rewards, you will be disappointed," Xafsa answered.

"The incentives discussed here generally consist of practical benefits. Extended duty-free periods. Priority assignment to difficult and complex cases. Participation in procedures whose educational value would ordinarily require greater rank or experience. Supervised research opportunities."

My first thought upon hearing what form my benefits would take... was that they made sense.

They were accurately the few things I would genuinely be willing to slightly alter my [Cultivation] routine for.

"For you personally, however, the program also includes access to texts relating to the attenuation of your overdevelopment disorder."

Oh.

My [Focus] instantly sharpened.

Xafsa continued before I could ask anything.

"As an opening incentive, I was authorized to inform you that the Essence overdevelopment disorder is not an Essence disorder that has yet been permanently 'solved' by any means other than allowing one's Essence to develop naturally until it reaches a stage at which overdevelopment no longer occurs."

All I felt upon hearing this was disappointment.

But, unfortunately, I concurrently felt that such [Knowledge] was not unexpected.

Be that as it may, had solutions been readily attainable, I would have already uncovered at least one or two solid leads.

But instead, I had now been fumbling my Path forward through utter [Darkness], with ignorance as my sole constant, for more than two years now.

"As for impermanent solutions," Xafsa continued with its habitual flat tone, "the Pulse does possess records of some."

Something resembling relief coursed through my entire being, but I didn't immediately act on this piece of [Knowledge].

Because those were words spoken in the context of my incentive program.

"Whether those solutions involve Essence evolution, a specialized Aspect, a recurring procedure, or something neither you nor I presently possess the conceptual foundation to understand, however, you will have to wait to discover, because your formation of the [Vitality] Aspect is the first major threshold imposed upon you."

My [Awareness] momentarily locked onto Xafsa, studying its every shift, but nothing about its posture suggested it would provide more.

That was really it.

"Understood," I assented, then returned my incentive program sheet to Xafsa's work surface.

"Keep it," Xafsa said. "Its objectives will be updated at regular intervals according to your progress, failures, and changing institutional circumstances. You will be informed as to when your incentive program is actualized so that you may come fetch its latest version."

I folded the sheet, making it very tightly fit within one of my uniform's pockets, and departed.

No further conversation was necessary.

I returned toward the Aspirant repository floors while considering what I had learned.

The fact that my overdevelopment disorder could not be permanently resolved before my Essence naturally matured enough to stop being vulnerable to overdevelopment...

Honestly, it altered little, whether it was an actual [Truth] or not.

I had already adapted my Path to the persistent, aggravating existence of my overdevelopment disorder, after all.

I came up with an overdevelopment safety margin.

I imposed Essence development quotas on myself.

I learned how to best optimize my idle periods of restraint.

All in all, I had already accepted that for every manner of [Cultivation] I carried out, there was a cost to pay.

The sudden manifestation of some manner of impermanent solutions, what's more, ones that I could realistically grasp if I accomplished something, however...

That changed everything.

Because if there was one thing my [Clarity] kept on reminding me of, it was that even being optimistic about it, my overdevelopment disorder had already cost me at least a year's worth of Essence development.

Potentially much more.

[Cultivation]s left unpursued.

Times idled away.

[Insight]s—now [Comprehension]s—I was prevented from delving too deep into...

If I were a millennium-old powerhouse, I could begrudgingly accept such a waste of time as a twisted sort of [Temperance] [Cultivation].

But I wasn't.

And even my estimation of having lost a mere single year's worth of Essence development was only one I made to stop me from obsessively [Focus]ing on the actual number.

It was a lamentable loss.

One that continued growing with every second I continued to restrain my development below what my existence and Path could otherwise sustain.

Hence, the natural conclusion to finally discovering an escape opportunity from this wretched state, even one I wasn't certain would even be applicable to my Path...

Was that if until now, what had dictated my Essence development priorities had been how heavily I should prioritize the likes of forming the [Vitality] Aspect or advancing my [Cultivation] Aspect to Tier 2 compared to all my other objectives...

Then the only question that remained now was how thoroughly I could dedicate my entire Essence development quota toward pursuing forming the [Vitality] Aspect without overly neglecting my broader [Life] studies.

What was already a given was that no matter how much I wished to do away with it all, not all of my [Life] studies could be discarded.

Not only was my incentive program mostly based around my fulfilling of increasingly more complex and demanding duties, which by itself required me to continue growing my [Mastery] of [Life]...

But anyway, the [Mastery] Aspect was something Xafsa had clearly established as a near requirement for me to pursue forming the [Vitality] Aspect.

And that wasn't even accounting for how pursuing forming the [Vitality] Aspect without sufficient [Knowledge] of [Mastery] of [Life] would only transform my haste into inefficiency.

But anything not contributing to those requirements...

Anything whose postponement wouldn't endanger patients, hinder forming the [Mastery] Aspect, or weaken my foundation for forming the [Vitality] Aspect...

Could be gone for all I cared.

As incentives went, I believed with my entire being that this one was genuinely [Worthy] of affecting my Path to this extent.

And if whoever had designed and provided it expected this first major threshold to come to fruition years from now...

I would all too happily prove them wrong.