"I seem to re-call," Shi-da Ken tried to keep his voice even, as be-fit his sta-tion as Lord of the city of Emer-ald Val-ley, de-spite want-i-ng very bad-ly to cow-er or kow-tow be-fore the Blood Witch, es-pe-cial-ly now that she seemed to be wor-thy of a new name, "that you promised me you were re-tired." He was sit-ting along with her at one of the ta-bles in the inn, now a good half hour af-ter the Young Lord Mofu Suno had de-part-ed. Every-one else was out-side, at his re-quest, and guards were mak-ing sure they had a lit-tle bit of pri-va-cy.

  "That was a long time ago," Alas-si's voice was strange. In truth, in her bear-ing and qi, the city lord saw a dif-fer-ent per-son--a per-son that had more vi-brance to her than he had ever seen. It was not sim-ply the quan-ti-ty of her qi--and al-though he knew her to be at least a Sil-ver-ranked Cul-ti-va-tor now, he sus-pect-ed she was still hid-ing her depths. She had, af-ter all, beat-en a Gold-ranked Cul-ti-va-tor in a di-rect, one on one con-test, even if... even if many would not con-sid-er it a fair con-test.

  If any-one ac-cused the city lord of bias, he would yield. But in the mo-ment, he had done what he be-lieved hon-or de-mand-ed. In truth, it seemed like Alas-si should have lost, but there was a sharp-ness to her spir-it, like a blade un-dulled by time, which to his knowl-edge she sim-ply should not have had.

  "Then you should be long re-tired," the lord said, but mea-sured his words with as gen-tle a smile as he could sum-mon un-der the cir-cum-stances. "And yet I feel you are younger to-day than you were back then, Blood Witch Alas-si."

  Alas-si's mouth twitched, as though in dis-dain for the name. "Not younger. But I have found new strength and pur-pose. I do not ex-pect I will stay."

  Ken con-sid-ered the words, un-sure whether he want-ed to cel-e-brate or feel di-gust-ed. What she had done would stir up the no-ble house of Mofu, and they would re-turn with-out ques-tion. If Ken could pre-sent her when they re-turned, he would be in no dan-ger; if he could re-port that she had left, it would only be mild dan-ger for him. But if he sug-gest-ed that she was leav-ing and had not yet...

  "When do you plan to leave?" He chose not to ask where. Al-though he had re-spect-ed the Blood Witch when he was--when they were both younger, for her ac-com-plish-ments and for help-ing his broth-er in the war, Alas-si had shown no in-ter-est in him or in any-one at all, not af-ter her hus-band died. To his un-der-stand-ing, she had re-mained pure--hav-ing loved one man, she would not touch an-oth-er. Hon-or-able, per-haps, though she was still very dan-ger-ous.

  "I must still re-cov-er my-self ful-ly." Alas-si paused, as though think-ing, and then added, "or per-haps, I must sim-ply break through to Gold. It will be eas-i-er af-ter that."

  "Gold is dif-fi-cult for those with-out the re-sources," Ken hedged in re-turn. "And even af-ter all of these years, you are only sil-ver--"

  "Last week, I was Iron," Alas-si said, dis-mis-sive-ly. "I will raise high-er. I have found both strength and pur-pose, Lord Shi-da. I do not ex-pect to stay long."

  As Alas-si was talk-ing, though, Ken saw her frown, and her eyes looked far off, for a mo-ment. Then, when they re-fo-cused on him... he could swear that they had a dif-fer-ent look to them, as though the woman had changed from one mo-ment to the next. And when she spoke again, her voice had a dif-fer-ent qual-i-ty, less cer-tain.

  "...though, Lord Shi-da, if you would mind shar-ing what you know of the Gold-en Ridge and the Gold-en Wall, I would cer-tain-ly ap-pre-ci-ate it."

  Shi-da Ken mea-sured her, un-sure of the tran-si-tion. "Are you...?"

  Alas-si just frowned at him, sud-den-ly more se-vere, with the vig-or from ear-li-er al-most giv-ing way to the depth of that frown. "I am in many ways a chan-nel for some-thing greater, Lord Shi-da. It is... a part of my pur-pose, if you will."

  Ken stud-ied her only an-oth-er mo-ment, be-fore re-lent-ing. "The Gold-en Wall is the break-through at the end of Gold Rank, and is said to be one of the trick-i-est chal-lenges, re-quir-ing peak con-di-tion of body and mind, as well as deep un-der-stand-ing of qi. The Gold-en Ridge is the tran-si-tion into the Gold Rank, and it is where I my-self am trapped. It is one of the many rea-sons why no-ble fam-i-lies have an eas-i-er time of it than non-no-bles. They say that the break-through it-self is a puz-zle--"

  With-out any warn-ing, Ken and Alas-si both were sur-prised when a sud-den force of qi grasped Alas-si's qi core, and al-though Ken's qi sens-es were not the clear-est, he saw with-out ques-tion that the force took her core into its hands, flip-ping it over and re-ar-rang-ing the core. Al-though Alas-si her-self was at that mo-ment only four Sil-ver Stars, her core de-vel-oped with a frankly un-heard of speed, push-ing it-self all the way to ten stars as though by force of will.

  Shi-da Ken watched with rapt at-ten-tion as the fa-mil-iar shape of a ten Sil-ver-star core ap-peared in the space be-fore him, and then the star peaks pulled out, stretch-ing the core un-til its depths were re-vealed. Only then were in-di-vid-ual star points re-leased, falling back into the core in time with a ry-th-mic cir-cu-la-tion that he al-most didn't no-tice. And when the last point of the star fell into it, Alas-si's core in-stant-ly snapped into a gold-en col-or, and Ken could sense be-hind it the be-gin-ning of Alas-si's dant-ian, con-dens-ing in a space with-in her soul.

  Wit-ness-ing it, it was like a world fell open for Shi-da Ken, and al-though he didn't con-scious-ly try, his spir-it also be-gan to break through.

  Sobon had only just start-ed to have a con-ver-sa-tion with this city leader, Lord Shi-da, when she re-ceived a ping from the Tidal Coro-na's AI, re-quest-ing an im-me-di-ate men-tal-only con-tact from the Coro-na's en-gi-neer-ing team.

  It was a lit-tle more com-pli-cat-ed than that. In truth, the Coro-na for-ward-ed a pack-e-tized thought re-quest, the brevi-ty of which im-me-di-ate-ly cought Sobon's at-ten-tion. The in-tu-itive-ra-tio-nal con-cept asked Sobon whether he could hold a con-densed-thought-stream con-ver-sa-tion--es-sen-tial-ly a chat stream formed of full-thought-sized data-grams.

  This was vast-ly more in-ter-est-ing than lo-cal pol-i-tics, so she left Alas-si to deal with the lo-cal of-fi-cial, ded-i-cat-ing her own thoughts ex-clu-sive-ly to the task. Alas-si ap-par-ent-ly knew him, any-way, so Sobon fig-ured it was sim-ply bet-ter this way.

  There was only a brief pro-to-col ne-go-ti-a-tion, which told Sobon she was deal-ing with some-one who had been cy-ber-en-hanced for many years. Al-though she was un-fa-mil-iar with Ri'lef pro-to-cols, and they were un-fa-mil-iar with Crestan ones, they set-tled on stan-dard trade pro-to-cols, and then took a brief dal-liance to each ex-tend those pro-to-cols in fa-mil-iar ways. Sobon found the Ri'lef pro-to-cols a bit noisy, full of what seemed at first to be re-dun-dant chan-nels, though he ex-pect-ed they were there to trans-mit nu-ances that he had nev-er been trained in.

  [ You are the (sum-moned) war-rior, ] the Ri'lef en-gi-neer sent as part of their open-ing ne-go-ti-a-tions. [ I am K'val, (In-dus-tri-al Sec-ond) of the Coro-na En-gi-neer-ing crew. ] Sobon replied with his name, rank, and se-cure sig-na-ture to-ken. Then they both paused for their ne-go-ti-a-tions, dur-ing which Sobon re-ceived as part of a re-ply the de-cod-ed af-fir-ma-tion string buried in his sig-na-ture to-ken--mean-ing that the en-gi-neer had not only suc-cess-ful-ly de-cod-ed it, but cho-sen to say so. Sobon added a emo-tion-al over-lay of plea-sure on her next re-turn pack-et, and the two left that ex-change there.

  His? Her? Now that Sobon was op-er-at-ing, in part, as his old self, the lines were blurred again, but af-ter a mo-ment, he con-sid-ered it to re-al-ly not mat-ter one way or an-oth-er. If any-thing, get-ting too into his old per-sona would make his adap-ta-tion to Alas-si hard-er, so she tried to keep that in the fore-front, al-though she doubt-ed it would mat-ter at all to the Ri'lef.

  [ I have been tasked with both as-sist-ing you and cen-sur-ing you, ] K'val sent to-wards the tail end of their pro-to-col ne-go-ta-tions. [ I was (told) by the Coro-na that you are aware we are en-gi-neer-ing (the aether-sphere) of this plan-et. You are at-tempt-ing to in-te-grate non-lo-cal aether pro-to-cols into the (plan-e-tary mythol-o-gy). This is al-ready hav-ing an im-pact on our abil-i-ty to con-trol the sit-u-a-tion. ] Sobon had to cross-ref-er-ence some of the in-tu-itive con-cepts, and the two had a brief four-pack-et spat over the de-f-i-n-i-tion of (plan-e-tary mythol-o-gy), with Sobon fi-nal-ly ac-knowl-edg-ing that the Ri'lef en-gi-neer doubt-less un-der-stood the con-cept bet-ter.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  [ To date, this has been nec-es-sary for my sur-vival, ] Sobon re-turned. [ In every in-car-na-tion so far, I have put up against forces too dan-ger-ous to sur-vive with the re-sources avail-able. I also am giv-en to un-der-stand that the lo-cal aether pro-gres-sion is de-lib-er-ate-ly slowed and gat-ed, which may make my mis-sion dif-fi-cult. ]

  [ Your un-der-stand-ing is nat-u-ral-ly cor-rect. Even with all of our en-gi-neered de-vel-op-men-tal (gates) and tools, lo-cal (aether war-riors) are reach-ing un-in-tend-ed lev-els, and specif-i-cal-ly, reach-ing them with-out un-der-stand-ing the eth-i-cal con-se-quences. This has all been com-pli-cat-ed by the nec-es-sary cre-ation of (Star-beasts) for our own use and de-fense, which has only been seen by the lo-cals as some com-bi-na-tion of in-va-sion and re-source. ]

  This time, with some clar-i-ty, the Ri'lef fol-lowed with a full, mul-ti-pack-et men-tal con-cept of what the lo-cals called Star-beasts. They were, as Sobon ex-pect-ed, bio-engi-neered aether-adapt-ed an-i-mals, al-though she was sur-prised to dis-cov-er the point. Star-beasts lived specif-i-cal-ly to rapid-ly adapt to tox-ic lev-els of aether, form-ing a core that could serve as a re-place-ment for aether-tol-er-ant ma-te-ri-als nec-es-sary to re-pair their star-ship. If the Coro-na could har-vest enough of them, they could, in the-o-ry, re-pair their star-ship in place, al-though the re-sult would be vast-ly in-fe-ri-or to the re-pairs even the shod-di-est space-dock would have made.

  [ These cores the lo-cals seem so in-ter-est-ed in are noth-ing but ma-te-ri-als? ] Sobon con-sid-ered the pack-et fur-ther as she sent the re-ply, get-ting an-oth-er rel-a-tive-ly long an-swer back.

  [ We are aware of their val-ue to the lo-cals. It is un-for-tu-nate, but our cal-cu-la-tions sug-gest that if we in-ter-rupt their har-vest-ing of (Star-beast Cores), the rel-a-tive sta-bil-i-ty of our cur-rent sit-u-a-tion will evap-o-rate. The cores can be in-te-grat-ed into their (aether bod-ies) to sta-bi-lize them, al-low-ing them to use aether above the nor-mal tox-i-c-i-ty lim-it. As long as they be-lieve they can har-vest the cores with im-puni-ty, we hope they will re-main dis-tract-ed from your tar-get. ]

  Sobon didn't miss the change in con-ver-sa-tion. [ What can you tell me about the tar-get? ]

  The re-turn pack-et was in-stan-te-nous, as the Ri'lef was ex-pect-ing the ques-tion. [ I need to know to what de-gree you and your race are cleared by the Founders, and no lies. The Coro-na will be mon-i-tor-ing your re-sponse. ]

  Sobon didn't both-er try-ing to test the lim-its. [ I be-lieve the term the founders use for our race is (Ex-ter-nal-ini-ti-ate). In-di-vid-u-als have been cleared for some in-ter-nal mat-ters, and we are giv-en limt-ed trade rights. I have no per-son-al con-tact with any mem-ber of the Founder race and no spe-cial clear-ances. ]

  Again, a very fast re-ply. [ Would you be will-ing to sub-mit to Founder au-thor-i-ty in ex-change for the nec-es-sary clear-ance? This would only be a pre-lim-i-nary ap-proval, and you may nev-er be giv-en all of the de-tails you would re-quire for an op-ti-mal mis-sion. The plau-si-ble con-se-quence is not be-ing per-mit-ted by the Founders to re-turn to your plan-et with-out a sus-tained de-brief-ing. ]

  Sobon only spent a few mo-ments con-tem-plat-ing. [ I am a sol-dier. I was brought to this world af-ter dy-ing in an un-re-lat-ed mis-sion. I have no spe-cif-ic de-sire to re-turn to Crest. Ad-di-tion-al-ly, there are lo-cals I (have grown fond of). If there is a chance to sal-vage this sit-u-a-tion, I con-sid-er it a duty. I would ac-cept this con-se-quence to car-ry out the mis-sion. ]

  In-stead of a re-ply from the Ri'lef en-gi-neer, Sobon re-ceived an en-crypt-ed data-gram from the Coro-na, with no key. Only af-ter a brief in-ter-val did she re-ceive a fol-low up from the en-gi-neer.

  [ If any-one on the Coro-na crew, or any-one from the Founders, asks you to con-firm that you have been read into this agree-ment, you should re-peat the fol-low-ing phrase, and in-ter-pret it as best you can. It is a trans-la-tion of a Founder con-cept, one of the fun-da-men-tal so-cial con-cepts of their race. (It takes an en-tire (hand) to (grasp) the fu-ture.) This is con-cept is also the key to the data-gram you have been sent.]

  That was an odd thought. The en-tire phrase it-self was in-her-ent-ly-trans-lat-ed, rather than ren-dered in ei-ther of their lo-cal lan-guages, and the word (hand) was dou-ble-trans-lat-ed, with sev-er-al of the Ri'lef's ex-tend-ed data chan-nels be-ing used to con-vey the sin-gle word. Their con-cept of a (hand)--that is, the bi-o-log-i-cal grip-per at the end of one's arm--was metaphor-i-cal, but also phys-i-cal. A hand was made up of many pieces, bones, mus-cles, skin, and nerves, and all of them served a func-tion. If Sobon un-der-stood the phrase... each per-son was them-selves only a small part of a Hand. Maybe sev-er-al peo-ple made up each in-di-vid-ual part of a Hand. Grasp-ing, in con-trast, was a slight-ly metaphor-i-cal slant on the same, with some ex-tra de-tail on what it meant in con-text, but all of it un-der-stood from the con-text of the Hand.

  Sobon let those thoughts run off on their own, de-cod-ing the data pack-et with the packed con-cept of (hand). It showed, more or less, what Sobon had al-ready been told--it was a high-ly cen-sored di-a-gram for a Founder de-vice that was di-rect-ing the lo-cal aether in the vicin-i-ty. It ap-peared to con-nect to oth-er, cen-sored things, and had a place in-side that Sobon im-me-di-ate-ly sus-pect-ed was a con-trol room, but which was also cen-sored.

  [ That's not much more than I gleaned from be-ing told the rough sit-u-a-tion by the cap-tain, ] Sobon said in re-ply. [ What can you tell me that's use-ful? ]

  [ Not a lot, ] the en-gi-neer replied, with tone in-di-ca-tors for tired-ness and frus-tra-tion with au-thor-i-ty. [ Aether is a more com-pli-cat-ed con-cept than you may know. You may know it con-nects to oth-er aether across space and also across time, which means that it med-dles with (fate), among oth-er ad-vanced con-cepts. To do that re-quires a struc-ture that ex-ists for-wards and back-wards in time, and mod-i-fi-ca-tions can only hap-pen across the span of the struc-ture, with oth-er con-straints that both com-plex and se-cret. Cross-time ma-nip-u-la-tion con-sumes vast amounts of pow-er, and re-quires math that even our own great-est en-gi-neers can-not mod-el. ]

  [ In-stead of try-ing, the Founders iso-late as-pects of time med-dling as dis-tinct-ly fla-vored aether va-ri-eties whose be-hav-iors can be pre-dict-ed. Since be-fore this species ex-ist-ed, this plan-et's bios-phere has been shaped ac-cord-ing to aether pat-terns to fall into one of the Founder child-pat-terns. The tar-get fa-cil-i-ty is re-lat-ed to that op-er-a-tion. ]

  That... the thought chilled Sobon, es-pe-cial-ly giv-en the fact the many re-sem-blances of this species to the species of Crest. The ob-vi-ous in-ti-ma-tion was that Crest was also a Founder child race, de-spite ex-ist-ing well out-side Founder-con-trolled space. [ What is the worst case sce-nario if they achieve con-trol over the fa-cil-i-ty? ]

  [ Ir-rel-e-vant, as the only plau-si-ble out-come would be ex-ter-mi-na-tion by the Founders. We are in a pro-tect-ed sec-tor, if a fringe one. There is no chance of any mem-ber of this species es-cap-ing be-fore a rou-tine Founder ex-am-i-na-tion, or a fol-low up to the Coro-na's dis-ap-pear-ance, dooms this world. A more like-ly out-come would be that a failed at-tempt to use the fa-cil-i-ty has-tens the end of the world. ]

  Sobon rephrased the ques-tion, us-ing the Crestan ad-di-tion-al pro-to-col over-lays to add a struc-ture to the thoughts as she trans-mit-ted it, link-ing them to com-mon mil-i-tary terms and in-tents. [ (Op-er-a-tional pa-ra-me-ter): What are the chances that par-tial con-trol ren-ders our op-er-a-tion (mil-i-tar-i-ly un-fea-si-ble)? ]

  There was a pause, and then a se-ries of data-grams. Al-though they were clear-ly non-mil-i-tary thought, they showed suf-fi-cient clar-i-ty. Cer-tain of the en-er-gies could be ex-tract-ed to pro-duce su-pe-ri-or war-riors, but con-trol over the fa-cil-i-ty it-self would not pro-vide most of what Sobon feared. [ Clar-i-fi-ca-tion: The fa-cil-i-ty does not con-tain (su-pe-ri-or aether-based AI) ca-pa-ble of (retroac-tive time ma-nip-u-la-tion)? ]

  [ Con-firmed, ] came the re-ply. [ This is cen-sored in the di-a-gram, but I sus-pect you guessed, as most peo-ple would. The fa-cil-i-ty is in-tend-ed to be con-trolled by a Founder di-rect-ly. It nor-mal-ly links into a hy-per-space net-work and al-lows di-rect trav-el, pre-vent-ing the need for a res-i-dent ad-min-is-tra-tor. An anom-aly caused the net-work node to dis-en-gage, which called for our (ap-point-ment) to ad-dress the is-sue. We are (con-trac-tors) for Founder (work), not trust-ed with sen-si-tive is-sues, but ad-e-quate-ly read-in on Founder Poli-cies to be able to be dis-patched at much low-er cost and po-lit-i-cal (non-sense). ]

  Sobon men-tal-ly scoffed at the pseu-do-ra-tio-nal con-cept of po-lit-i-cal (non-sense), which she imag-ined was just one of many for-eign trans-la-tions of the same con-cept across cul-tures. Sobon would have trans-lat-ed the term more rude-ly, but then, she wasn't in the Founders' em-ploy. [ If you want me to not in-tro-duce Crestan aether tech into the plan-e-tary aether-sphere, you will need to give me ad-vanced point-ers on es-tab-lish-ing my-self as a war-rior. Cur-rent-ly, my (qi) lev-el is (four-star Sil-ver). ]

  The re-turn data-gram was fast, and fol-lowed up with sev-er-al oth-ers. [ I will get the Coro-na to pro-vide you a full data-base, but you must un-der-stand that the (plan-e-tary myth) must re-main in-tact. In truth, my per-son-al analy-sis sug-gests your (cy-cle and thorn) (aether-guide) can be in-te-grat-ed into the (plan-e-tary myth) with min-i-mal changes, but that is my su-pe-ri-or's call, not mine. For now, un-der-stand that the gat-ing sys-tem, how-ev-er ar-bi-trary, ex-ists to pre-vent peo-ple from gain-ing pow-er they do not de-serve. It should not be seen as with-in an in-di-vid-ual's abil-i-ty to as-cend as fast as you have. Some things con-sid-ered im-pos-si-ble should re-main im-pos-si-ble, at least by gen-er-al con-sen-sus. ]

  [ That said, most of the gat-ing is en-tire-ly ar-bi-trary, and here is a list of steps to get around them. Try not to be too vis-i-ble when you make use of them. ]

  Sobon didn't even no-tice the sec-ond half of the mes-sage as she glanced through the packed data-grams, im-me-di-ate-ly ad-just-ing her-self up to the be-gin-ning of Gold Qi.