"Since you don't know about the process of ranking up, you may know this simply because I told you, but allow me to explain why. Based on your experiences earlier, I know you felt it, but hear me out anyway. Think of your soul as a sphere. Within that sphere is where your created anima is contained. However, not all of that space within that sphere is used. Some souls are able to store more anima than others."

"Oh, is that so?"

"Yes. We don't have an exact way of figuring out how much of the soul is used, but based on some archaic texts preserved by our shrine, in order to even have the chance of becoming a Weaver, your soul is at least sixty percent full of anima. Those with stronger bloodlines or stronger divine activations have about eighty percent of their soul full."

"And higher than eighty percent?"

"I wouldn't know, but I would assume that only the gods can use one-hundred percent of their soul as storage for their anima."

"A fair assumption."

"This is just how much anima a soul can store, though, not generate. To increase your rank, you must refine your soul, and this, in turn, causes it to grow larger and thus occupy more space."

"And because it's larger, the amount of anima it can store even at seventy percent is greater than the seventy percent of a smaller soul."

"Correct. Having more anima at their command is just one reason Weavers of higher ranks are often stronger than ones of lower ranks. However, the more significant reason is that Weaver of higher ranks has refined souls and, in turn, more refined anima which lets them cast higher level spells."

Aleister nodded. "How does one refine their soul?"

"For us who had our souls activated by divine beings, our strength comes from prayer, loyalty, and carrying out requests our god wants us to complete. If satisfactory, the god grants us the required teachings to refine our soul."

"And for those that aren't Divine Weavers?"

"It's not different. The more anima you expend, the more your soul will generate. This will cause the weaker anima it generates to fade away with time and upgrade the rank of your anima. Of course, this method is incredibly slow, which is why the gods grant us specific techniques. Primal Weavers tend to use methods passed down by their clans. There are noticeable stages of anima between ranks, though, and this is what the steps between ranks are for. The initial step for those that have just generated that stage of anima, intermediate for a deeper complexion, and terminal for the stage right before transition."

"I noticed how you said stages between ranks."

"Yes, this is because at first, once you have to refine rank two anima to become a Rank Two Weaver. However, you will become a Rank Three and Rank Four Weaver with rank two anima since soul expansion is not anima rank dependent until you hit another bottleneck, and in this case, Rank Five, where you will need rank three anima."

"Could you refine rank three anima before Rank Five?"

"It's not that you can't refine rank three anima before reaching Rank Five, but once you do refine rank three anima, you will automatically have become a Rank Five Weaver. So while in theory, it is possible to skip Ranks Three and Four, you would have to refine the rank two anima straight into rank three with none of the transitional improvements."

"That does make sense."

"And for us with divine activated souls, this is the only way to increase our anima's rank past the bottleneck."

"So you can't go from Rank One to Rank Two without their divine intervention, but you can go from Rank Two to Rank Four without them."

"I see my explanation has been of some success."

"But, that still leaves me to wonder, what exactly does it mean when you meant my soul is fractured? I understand the whole it's about to break part in concept, but I don't understand how exactly it works."

"From my basic understandings, brief encounters, and answers from Sera herself, I can tell you that this condition means that your soul will continue to leak anima. From my knowledge, I can assume that you're above the common Weavers, but perhaps not as gifted as those within the Crystal Royal Family."

"Sounds about right," Aleister affirmed.

"As such, your soul holds the above-average amount of seventy to seventy-five percent of anima you generate, or in your particular case, absorb. At this point, you're still early on in your journey, so I doubt that you have noticed, but not that I'm telling you this, there's no doubt you will, but your reserve of the anima is always decreasing. This doesn't mean how much you can hold is reduced and instead refers to how you need to constantly be generating or absorbing anima in order to reach that cap."

Archbishop Vy was right. He hadn't thought much of it, but back down at Crystal Lake when Syn was teaching him about anima, he was unable to stop absorbing anima. At the time, he thought it was simply his lack of skill and control, but now...

"The higher your rank, the more anima you will leak, and the more your soul will need to generate until eventually—it cannot. Once that happens and you leak all of the anima remaining within it, you will die. However, your case is slightly different. Since you absorb anima from the world, you're right, you should live longer, but there will come a point where you can absorb and convert anima no longer as well. Anima is what gives people the ability to exist, and without it, you will cease to exist.

Aleister sighed. It appears my death is quite inevitable. "So my coughing up blood, and shortness are breath is related to my fractured soul?"

"Coughing up blood wasn't one I ever had the displeasure of witnessing, but the shortness of breath was the most prevalent symptom among the few I helped. However, when I did heal you with my divine magic, the rest of your body seemed fine and showed no adverse reactions, so to me there's no doubt that it's related to the same problem as your fractured soul. Ask anymore questions past this, and I'm afraid that I wouldn't hold the answers to them. I could always pray and ask for them if you so wish."

Aleister finished the last drop of his tea and smiled as he stood up. "Don't worry about such a thing. You've already been of such great service to me. Besides, having more answers isn't going to solve the problem at hand."

"I suppose not," Archbishop Vy said as he stood up as well. "I'm sorry that you had to learn about your condition right after becoming a Weaver, as well. If I had known, perhaps you would have been able to live a much longer and peaceful life."

"Don't feel sorry about it. I didn't even know you until today, so how could you have known?" Aleister grabbed a coin pouch from his bag and tossed it over. "As I promised, my donation to the church."

"I don't think we can accept this now."

"No need for the pleasantries. There's no price on the knowledge you provided me, so it feels as if I'm not doing enough."

Archbishop Vy nodded. "Don't leave just yet, hand me the collar you're wearing."

"Ah, sorry, I almost forgot about this." He detached the white collar from around his neck.

"I will be right back," Archbishop Vy said as he entered an unfamiliar room.

"Aleister..." Syn, who had been quiet this entire conversation, finally spoke up. "I'm sorry."