The Apex-moot took significantly longer than I expected, and it was sometime past noon by the time the stone doors swung open once more. To my surprise, only six of the ten Apexes descended, along with the scattering of unknowns I had seen around the table.

I stood and offered Raaf and Jorl a bow, even offering one to Chian as she passed, though she did not bother to acknowledge it. Jorl slapped me on the shoulder hard enough to make my back ache before continuing on with a loud laugh, and Raaf offered me a dignified nod. The strangers gave me narrow-eyed glances, and not knowing who they were, I gave my signature awkward wave.

Walker, Gia and Sonja followed after the others, stopping next to me.

“Hunter, I will be heading to Everwood City later today to begin my investigation; Aella will likely accompany me. She will wish to test your improvements.”

I winced slightly, knowing that I had really fallen behind with the chain and not eager for the thrashing I knew was probably coming as a result. But still, I knew I would at least get a good workout.

“I’ll go see her once I’m finished here, Walker. I had thought we’d have more time, but I guess life doesn’t always take our wants into account.”

“Indeed.”

My dark mentor had returned to his characteristic brevity, and I smiled as he raised an eyebrow in emphasis. Turning to the Apex of the Wild Bounty, I spoke again, looking around to make sure there was nobody too close.

“I met a couple of Elder thundering apes in the Sha Forest; they said you saved their lives and fixed their home, and wanted to express their gratitude. They chose to stay behind to protect their people, but I could tell it meant a lot to them. If you’re ever over that way again, I think they’d really appreciate seeing you again, to thank you in person.”

“I think I remember them! They were so cute, as children. I can’t believe they both made it to Elder! Sonja will be investigating the Sha Forest, as she was there most recently, but I think it would be fine if I visited, briefly...”

Gia sounded delighted at the message, while I realized that she seemed to remember the two of them; my memory had been starting to fail me by the time I took my seat in the cold back on Earth, but I knew that many of my peers had undergone regeneration and repair by then, but even they had required implants to improve their recall and processing in order to deal with their memories with the speed of youth. It was astonishing that the Apex’s memories were still so sharp after thousands of years. I knew that a Pinnacle stage cultivator was effectively immortal, completely unageing, and that Experience worked within us to perfect our bodies – thus all the very attractive people – but that was the first time I had really applied that to the mind. It... made sense. A person’s reactions and perceptions had to improve along with their speed, strength and toughness, or they’d be forever running into things and tripping, much like I had been when I first gained my Exemplar. Maybe I would not need to ask for a way to improve my memory, maybe it would do so on its own, as I advanced.

“Welcome, your company would be, Gia.”

“Good! Now, I think he has something to give you. Even though it’s rude to give one person in a group a gift, and not the others...”

The Apex of the Wild Bounty directed the last to me, her lips forming a pout as she tilted her head down and looked up at me through her eyelashes. The effect was almost stunning, but I quickly gave myself a mental shake and glanced away, clearing my throat. It was not that I was averse to a bit of flirting, but I could feel her intent like somebody breathing on my neck and it was just so weird a sensation that it was making my admittedly awkward tendencies worse.

“Uh, so it’s more of a project? An object of shared interest? Can we go somewhere private?” I refused to look at Gia as I said that, and I heard a low chuckle that told me she knew exactly what she was doing.

“Hunter, that’s awfully forward of you...”

“Believe, I do not, that the boy is ready for you, Gia.”

“Maybe you’re right, Sonja. Maybe give it a century or two.”

I looked at Walker for help, and he grinned at me from behind his blindfold, but thankfully he did step in.

“There is an empty chamber we can use through here.”

I followed Walker, my face only slightly red until we turned a corner and he stepped through a door into what looked like a medium sized sitting chamber. I had no idea what it was for, so close to the top of the Citadel, as it had no windows. Perhaps, I reasoned, it was for more casual meetings.

Once the door was closed, I asked Walker to make sure things were private, and pulled the body of the Fullmetal Asshole from storage. I quickly explained DUK3’s system, as much as I could and illustrated with my arm, emitting electrical bursts from both hands to show the difference.

“Anyway, it got me thinking – if these ‘designs’ can replace energy channels in things like stone or metal, can they do the same in a body? Can I draw them with my channels, or add them to my body? I know you have something of an interest, because you helped Darina with her channels. Can we integrate them somehow? It would be a massive gain.”

Sonja stood for a moment tapping her lips as she regarded the corpse of black metal. I could feel the Domains of the three Apexes rolling over the body, and one by one each of them reached out to lay hand on the dark surface. Minutes passed before they removed their hands, and Sonja turned to me.

“Exploded, your first arm did, you said?”

“Yeah. Dee Yu Kay Three said it wasn’t designed for Praxis and it sort of... drove itself apart.”

“This flaw, the patterns within this body, would have. Compare, I will need to.”

The Apex of the Mending Flesh’s pale, lambent eyes flicked down to my arm and I understood what she meant immediately, holding the clear crystal and gold appendage up again for her to grasp.

Normally, when a person was rooting around inside my body with their perceptions, I could feel it, like the spiritual version of en endoscopy moving about my stomach. It was weird, and a little invasive, but at least I could tell. With my arm, as Sonja looked, it felt less like I was used to, and more like a dull, buzzing ache, as if the perceptual filament was aligned just wrong enough to bother me. It did not hurt, not really, it was more like feeling you get in your legs on a plane when you barely move for ten hours.

I said nothing, as I felt the ache move about my arm, confident that if any damage was being done, it would be readily apparent. I put the difference down to subtle differences between organic and in-organic; DUK3 had been used to working this way in both, but to the best of my knowledge Sonja concentrated mostly on flesh. It did make we wonder – if her abilities were based around organic tissue – how she would perform against one of the Constructs, with each of them suppressing their abilities to alter reality.

I hoped it was a moot point; war might be good for cultural churn but I could only imagine it making my job harder. And you know, people die in war.

It took a few minutes for Sonja to finish inspecting my arm, as much – or more - time than anybody had ever spent inspecting my entire body, which I hoped was a good sign.

“Interesting. What everything does, I don’t know, but the difference between the basic structures, I think I can see. The additional functions, I do not wish to recreate, at this point at least. Insufficient capacity in flesh is a risk. The efficiency, however...”

The Mending Flesh reached out and tapped the mostly-metal corpse and it vanished.

“Careful we must be, if reproduce this effect I can. By trust it must be limited, or to everyone given. Fought over less, wars have been.”

“If it proves as efficient as Hunter has indicated, I fear you are right. A doubling of effective power...”

“For those that can endure it.”

Gia spoke up for the first time since we started the examination, her words tight on the end of Walker’s. The flirty expression and awareness were gone by then, and her face looked vaguely worried.

“Correct, Gia is. Only possible to redraw channels with my help, I thought. An exception, Hunter is.”

“Yeah, now that the phoenix egg is back with its parent – and hopefully hatching any time - there shouldn’t be many ways to simply prevent death, at least from the way Ben Won Ro reacted to it. But I’m sure a lot of people would die trying, and it’s in our nature to find ways around things. I’m sure they’d manage eventually.”

I was not overly keen on keeping the secret to doubling your power to a select few, but they were right that there seemed to be a lot of people who would go to any lengths to get it, and short of giving it to everyone – and risking their deaths – it was probably the best option, short of not using it at all. But I really wanted to use it, it would make surviving Xiournal’s increasingly dangerous tasks much easier. Which was a hell of a selling point.

“I have some more parts – I was going to give some to the Alchemy Association to examine, see if they could come up with anything, and continue to research the others myself. But like you said, I’m not sure it’s a good idea to hand it over to a commercial venture. Ro already agreed to stop producing his... pill... as a favour to Walker, I’m not sure they’d be keen on doing the work but not benefitting on this.”

“I think it best that we do not involve the Association; we have chosen to give them the benefit of the doubt, but that is not absolute trust. It would be a mistake to potentially hand our enemies an improvement of this potential, especially as they may still have some of the formula they used on Hunter in stock.”

That was a thought that had not occurred to me; the Risen Throne could make use of any research into the subject that they had already done. It would not be easy, or fun, but it would certainly be more possible.

“Right you are, Walker. I don’t suppose there’s somewhere safe I could leave most of the... bits?”

“Give them to me, I will ensure they are not misplaced.”

With a nod, I dropped the various arms and legs onto the floor, making sure to keep a set of each for my own purposes. One by one, they vanished as Walker crouched to retrieve them, and I let out a light sigh, glad to have got that part of what I needed to do out of the way.

“Alright, thank you all for meeting with me like this, I appreciate it. I guess we can check in again after... you guys search the world? And I get back from wherever the prison is.”

Sonja offered me a small bow, and Gia gave me a nod, thankfully still seeming to be lost somewhat in thought.

“We’ll talk again before we leave. Now you should see Aella... I fear she would not react well to missing you.”

“Yeah, I’ll head over now. Thanks again, your Apexnesses.”

I gave a bow and left, heading out the door to seek the nearest platform to take me down. It was not until I was maybe half-way down that I realised I had forgotten something, again. I knew I had wanted to ask Walker something, but the only thing that was coming to mind was my name, and that was not really something I considered urgent.

I hoped I would recall before our next meeting, or I knew I would be kicking myself until we met again.