For two weeks, Theo didn't leave the House Blacksilver complex except in the company of others for assignments. In part out of caution in case Esaire's family intended to strike immediately, and in part because this was an essential period for focused soulcrafting.

In that time, he'd finished the outer walls of his second floor as well as a wooden roof, and he was proud of his work. The exterior was excellent, all glowing with the intrinsic light of eclipsebasalt... the interior was still rough, but polishing that would be the work of months, and non-essential for his current goals. What mattered was that he now had nine new chambers to work with - actually eight - and he could begin filling them with sublime materials.

Unfortunately, that was the last major accomplishment he could manage with brute time and willpower. He could do a significant amount of work carving designs, but that was an enhancement, not a substitute for cantae-generating materials. Fortunately, since Nauda and Fiyu had reported that the Armeau family was behaving, simply training Esaire in the House of Burning Leaves, he could now begin hunting for them.

Theo opened his eyes in the real world and looked around for the others, but the soulcrafting courtyard remained empty. Not yet time for them to depart. As a small token of support, House Blacksilver had let him use one of their special training courtyards. It wasn't anything grand, but it offered a quiet and well-defended place to soulcraft.

Soon enough, they'd come get him to leave on a serious assignment, but he must have a little more time. Normally he would have taken the opportunity to recover, but Theo judged that he could push a little harder. There were many steps he could take toward developing his new technique, even if he couldn't realize it yet.

Returning to his soulhome, Theo entered the central chamber and then climbed up his ladder in the center to reach the second floor. In time he was going to have to come up with a better solution, because moving between floors started to become more difficult at the Ruler tier. However, that was a long term goal, and he hoped that he could come up with a solution that would avoid the need to waste space on staircases, permanent ladders, or anything else that didn't strengthen him.

Though the majority of his floor was solid, the solarstone and eclipsebasalt perfectly merged, he'd left the central chamber completely empty. The meeting point between the floors could use detail work, now that he looked at it. That was the reason he only had eight rooms on the second floor: he didn't intend to create a single heart chamber, he planned to create a heart column.

According to his blueprint, the central chambers would become a pillar of strength for his entire soulhome, but he needed to run tests to be sure exactly how to balance it. What mattered now was that the central chamber on the second floor would serve as a perfect focusing point.

While balanced on the ladder, Theo got out his spirit chisel and began to tunnel shafts that angled down to the four corner chambers on the first floor. Such work would never be possible in the real world, but his soulhome responded to his willpower and gradually reshaped itself. Soon he opened the first shaft and could feel cantae flowing from his chamber for gravitational fields.

Merging the strengths of different rooms was a technique he hadn't understood until late in his first soulhome. It was common knowledge to healers, who frequently mixed specific sources of cantae to produce different types of healing, but he'd had no time for healing back then, it had been just something that was done for him. Now, he intended to use exactly the same concept for rather more destructive purposes.

His gravitational field and torsion chambers each had a practical effect, while chambers that created mass or anti-mass were currently too weak to be useful in combat. Now, however, they would prove their worth as he gathered all four concepts into one. The singularity in the center of his first floor pulsed beneath him.

Soon it would allow him to generate a real black hole.

As an Archcrafter, he knew that the technique wouldn't be overwhelming, a far cry from the devastating technique he hoped to generate one day. But he was certain that it would be viable, based on how his mass and anti-mass chambers had strengthened when he ascended. The event horizon might not be large, but within that range, it would consume all cantae, even a Ruler's. His strategy for the coming duel required him to soulcraft the capacity and then somehow manage to pull it off in a real fight.

It took him less time than he'd expected to create the four shafts, and no one had come for him yet, so Theo decided to take on another task. Stepping back down the ladder, he reached out to grasp the singularity with his hands. Here in his soulhome, it was the heart of his power, so he could move it like he moved every part of himself.

Still, it resisted him when he tried to pull it upwards. He'd created it in the blasted black space of the central chamber and the singularity was in a spiritual sense bonded to it, part of the cantae orbiting around the central chambers. If he brought it to the second floor, it could absorb the cantae from below and eventually manifest.

When he started to pull it between the eclipsebasalt walls, however, Theo felt the pressure intensify. He'd been worried that his singularity might be too weak to function well on his second floor and now realized he might have the opposite problem: he'd been feeding it so much spiritual mass that it was dangerous when not within an environment designed to contain it.

A crack sounded above him and his instincts immediately urged him to pull the singularity back down to the first level. There it returned to its peaceful rotation, humming along in its proper place. Frowning, he climbed back up the ladder to examine the damage.

Fortunately, it had only been some fragments of eclipsebasalt breaking off and falling below. He'd soulcrafted his walls well, so they wouldn't be seriously damaged so easily. However, he now knew that they wouldn't be durable enough to contain the singularity. His hope had been that the dark side of the eclipsebasalt would be equal to the obsidian gloss that had been produced by the catastrophic failure of his first blueprint.

Theo chuckled as he realized the truth: he needed to reproduce that failure intentionally. If he found another sublime material that could implode in the same way, he could reproduce the same reinforced interior. Presumably he'd do the same every floor, which would strengthen the concept of the central column.

That meant he needed to find something equivalent to a noonstone core, which might be a bit tricky, but that was effectively just one more objective. He needed to find four powerful new materials to place in the corner rooms of his second floor anyway.

Clearly, all of that was delicate work he couldn't do while this tired. Theo passed out of his soulhome and rubbed the grit from his eyes in the real world. Still no one, so perhaps he should investigate. He shook off a bit of lethargy and headed into the Blacksilver complex.

It wasn't difficult to find them, as the group was assembling in the landing zone by the western gate. A large chariot of stone stood at one side, not having taken on its wind form. Silver lines of some sort of conductive sublime material linked it to a smaller chariot and his group's sleigh, but no one seemed to be working on them. Everything looked packed and he saw Nauda just waiting in a corner, so he figured there must be some other holdup.

Though Nauda was soulcrafting, her body flickered back to her full presence when he approached. "We're ready to leave," she explained, "but the Ruler who was meant to lead this assignment was injured in some sort of skirmish. I'm not clear on the details, and the way they're hiding them, it must have something to do with House politics. So now they're trying to find another Ruler willing to go talk to the mud Fithans."

"That's an insult, by the way," Theo said. "I'm surprised they didn't tell you that."

"Oh? They told me that they called themselves 'depths Fithans' but I heard the words as just a difference in dialect. Why don't they have proper ethnicity names, since the two groups are so different?"

"It has something to do with both sides considering themselves the true Fithans and the other group invaders. Pure propaganda, as far as I'm concerned, because I think both are native to this world."

"Presumably so, if they can have children together." Nauda's gaze went unfocused over the complex walls and he assumed that she was thinking of Tythes. Obvious as that fact was, it actually hadn't occurred to him. His mind didn't exactly gravitate to family affairs and Tythes was the first hybrid he'd seen.

"Actually, it's possible for some related species to have children, it's just that those children are sterile. So dust and depths Fithans might b-"

"You can take your transcendent scientific enlightenment somewhere else." Nauda faded into a golden blur as she returned to soulcrafting. "I'll remain here to keep track of progress, so just stay inside the complex and somewhat prepared. We should still leave today."

Accepting her dismissal, Theo headed back to the central buildings. He couldn't do meaningful soulcrafting at the moment, but he might as well review the available sublime materials before their journey, now that he had a new requirement. This region in Fithe didn't seem to have any particularly explosive materials, but the House imported from many nations.

He entered the office, noting only that Antha wasn't on duty at the moment. Instead he found the books that listed everything currently available to House members. Though they were ostensibly "gifts" for loyal members, it was essentially a store that accepted only merits. They had lists for armaments and luxuries, but Theo ignored them in favor of the sublime materials book and pored over the familiar lists.

He'd spent over two hundred of his merits on eclipsebasalt, and that had been an exceptionally good deal. If he continued to engage in extra tasks, he'd earn about a hundred every month over his salary, which combined with what he had would reach only seven hundred extra merits before his duel with Esaire.

Looking over the prices, he clearly needed alternate strategies. Theo ignored everything mundane and made a new mental list of items that looked worthwhile.

Voidgum 49 merits

Twilitwood 81 merits

Soulshadow Stone 300 merits

Dark Lantern 420 merits

Bleakburden 790 merits

Chasm Invitation 1000 merits

Esoteric Chisel 2500 merits

The list proved that House Blacksilver had much to offer him, but the total was absurdly high compared to what he expected to earn. Simple sublime materials like the voidgum or twilitwood were relatively inexpensive, though since they'd serve as excellent adhesives and trim, he could easily spend a lot on them. By far the most valuable item was the "Esoteric Chisel", which if he understood it correctly, was of such high quality that it could serve him for the rest of his life.

He set aside those and focused on the major cantae-generating materials: the Bleakburden and the Soulshadow Stone. Each would be a worthy cornerstone of his soulhome, but even those two combined cost over a thousand merits. Just considering that calculation made him realize that he needed to give up on acquiring a Chasm Invitation via merits in the short term. Perhaps after the duel.

Unfortunately, nothing in the book stuck out to him as a promising source of an implosion. There were a few he might ask the House officials about, but he wasn't hopeful. Whatever he found, it would need to come from a source outside the House stores.

That was one of the reasons that he didn't regret that he was forced to spend merits every month for his salary. Yes, having more merits would make those numbers look better, but he needed money as well. A city like Norro Yorthin had numerous markets, many of which might contain the sublime materials he needed... possibly at better prices. He'd need to investigate that more once they returned.

Still, he had his objectives straight. First any opportunity to acquire key sublime materials, second acquiring money or merits, and third doing more work on his soulhome. He needed significant time to polish the new blocks, carve more rooms, and build a stronger roof. That time could come in bits and pieces when he didn't have more critical work to do. It was a good plan for the next six months.

No... five and a half months, now.

Just as Theo began to worry over that in his head, he spotted Fiyu peering in from the doorway, and she smiled when he looked toward her. "Peanen, Nauda says that you should come. We are ready for our journey."

So it was time for them to leave the city and go to meet the other major race of Fithans. It was a rare mission that would offer great rewards... all they had to do was cross a war zone.