“Supplicants don’t necessarily have the symptoms of Aspirants,” Miya said during their tutoring session that evening.

Yuriko frowned as she considered her teacup. The Blue Valleys leaf was quite bitter, but a dash of cream and a dollop of honey enhanced its flavour quite well. It also left a crimson hue to the tea.

“Symptoms are quite well documented,” Miya continued primly. “Aspirants turn to Supplicants, but afterwards they change to Attendants or Thralls. A Supplicant reveals more through their actions than any physical symptoms unless you take a long hard look at their Anima. More often than not, they have internalised our influence such that it becomes a natural part of themselves rather than an external influence.” Her grin turned slightly savage. “Animus techniques that purge mental influence techniques would no longer work.”

“I… That really doesn't paint our ability in any good light,” Yuriko muttered. “Why would the Empire accept our clan?”

“Simple. We have the Empress’ favour.” Miya nodded sharply. “The Progenitor is a lifelong friend and companion. But she is incredibly standoffish and doesn’t care to dip her hands into mundane matters. Besides, to move from Aspirant to Supplicant, there is usually some measure of acceptance from the candidate. They may make a choice under heavy influence, but the Anima will not accept such a drastic change so easily. And anyone that has a level of Anima strength equal or greater than ours is largely unaffected.”

“It still seems wrong to me,” Yuriko huffed.

“You’ll change your mind,” Miya grinned. “It’s quite useful and convenient. Now, focus. I know you’ve had minimal success in controlling your Mien, but that’s fine. You’ve already learned how the Mien exudes from your Anima, and it shouldn’t take long now before you can narrow its scope…”

So went their nightly training. They only spent an hour after dinner, with Miya stating that training the Mien couldn’t be forced too long. The glacial pace and almost no progress irritated her to no end, especially when she compared it to her training with the Four Phases, and even her runescript training.

As for her Animus reserves, well, she had reached two hundred lumens weeks ago, but still was not at Sollus. The amount was the normal limit that a human body could hold, which was why the next steps would have made Animus more dense rather than increasing in volume.

Denser Animus, as she learned in the Academy and her conversation with Centurion Garderon, was the hallmark of Knights. Even Da didn’t explain this back when she was younger. Only a hundred and fifty lumens of Animus was needed to reach Knighthood, but it must be in a misty state rather than photonic. Reaching Sollus was necessary for the condensation. So why couldn’t she reach it? Her Anima was in the same state it was since she first used it when she was ten, even before the Atavism Ritual.

She had exceeded the minimum required, and her Anima was as strong as it needed to be. But she felt that she was still some distance from the cusp of advancement. Why?

You cannot be a Knight.

Damien’s words echoed in the sudden stillness of her mind.

“What?” she gasped out loud, prompting Miya to pause and tilt her head questioningly.

“Yes? Which part do you need clarification on?”

Yuriko was so shocked by Damien’s words that she stared at Miya for a few seconds before her face reddened in embarrassment.

“Ah, forgive me, I need the ladies’ room.”

“Oh, by all means.”

Yuriko hurriedly left to find a bit of privacy before she yelled, mentally, at Damien. ‘What do you mean?’

You cannot be a Knight, he repeated, You aren’t using the Imperial methods. Even if you partook of their Atavism Ritual, you abandoned the technique when you advanced to the Growth Stage.

‘I…’

You may have kept your Facet, and I believe it is what awakened me and allowed me to communicate with you, but I’ve learned what you have, and it’s quite clear. You can’t become a Knight. Not the way they can. You only have the Ancient’s Way. Of course, you said you would follow your own path, but really, why bother to find a different path when one already exists, and it will go to where you wanted.

‘You’re saying that I have different requirements to advance?’

Yes.

‘What else must I do?’

Hmmm, I find the concept of Sollus, fullness, quite ridiculous, honestly. Damien laughed. And the fact that your people have to make their Animus denser. It’s a needless step. While it makes a small amount of Animus more potent, it also means that it will exert a greater toll on the Anima and makes it harder and harder to advance to later stages.

Anyway, he continued, you cannot reach Sollus, and hence, become a Knight, simply because your Facet is still in the Novice level. Inlaying Facets restricts your Anima, which means your Animus is also constricted, and the only path to advancement is by making it more dense.

‘Then…what must I do?’

You need to gather more Animus. Two hundred lumens is not enough to trigger the World Trials. You cannot reach Actualisation without facing it. Ah, you need an Essence too, but that’s already taken care of.

‘Essence? You mean Radiant?’

It’s small and weak, and barely self-sustaining, but that’s only to be expected.

‘How much more Animus?’

A thousand. You need one thousand lumens under your control.

‘Control? Not in my core?’

Two hundred is the limit of your body. But tell me, where is Animus contained?

‘My core?’

And where else?

‘Anima?’

Yes. And your Anima is wider now. It can contain the rest of your Animus in it instead of forcing it into your smaller core, or body.

‘How?’

That, you’ll have to figure out for yourself.

‘And then? Once I hit a thousand, the, uhm, World Trials will happen? What then?’

You’ll be pulled into the dreamscape. Make sure you’re in a safe place before you try. And you should keep Fri’Avgi in your Anima. She will aid you.

Yuriko returned to Miya’s room afterwards, but since she was too distracted to pay attention, Miya told her to go to sleep instead.

In her room, Yuriko sat in a seated meditation pose on the bed, while her Anima was flared as far as it would go. It was at a full forty inches wide, a full pace. It hadn’t grown at all in the past weeks, and there was not the slightest sign of strain.

“Control a thousand lumens?” she murmured. In her Anima.

Frowning, she pulled from her core and sent it out of her body. Little globules of golden light swam around her, still firmly in her control. If she let it be…? When she relinquished her hold, the Animus simply floated around, swirling like motes of dust.

Then, it started to gather ambient Chaos and began to taint, drawing a curse from her lips. She retrieved what she could, but a lumen had turned into a mote of distilled Chaos and she lost another one in the process.

For the next hour and a half, she experimented with how to keep her Animus outside of her body without tainting. She hit upon the idea of making the borders of her Anima less permeable to ambient Chaos, and it worked. The problem was that it also stopped her from refilling her reserves. She kept at it until exhaustion and frustration dragged her to sleep.

This was supposed to be easy?

______

Little progress was made by the time the 43rd Day of Earth arrived, a week after piloting the Colossus. And now, she and the rest of the Sharom class were set to visit an Imperial Workshop to observe the various wonders of animatech being made.

The Ysserys Workshop was just outside the Palace Quarter so there was no need to alight from the trams and walk on those strange and fascinating strips in the middle of the road. A pity since she wanted to stride over those cobblestones, to feel the shift around her. Ah, perhaps she should just go there in her free time? But the Palace District was a restricted area, so she would need a good excuse to go there. Sheer curiosity wouldn’t do.

The class, all one hundred of them, headed towards the entrance, and then into the dedicated Circuit Trams for the Academy. It took five trams to fit them all, and about half an hour to get to the workshop.

The workshop was built over a low hill, and in fact, covered it in its entirety. It didn’t have more than three storeys above ground, but Yuriko was sure that most of the facility was under the hill. Chimneys rose up at even intervals and let out a trail of white smoke while dozens of haulers entered the wide doors, laden with wooden crates or piles of sand.

The trams brought them to a pedestrian entrance and the group gathered into a loose crowd. Yuriko went towards where Master Ruminos was, and along with her classmates, they entered the Ysserys Workshop.

The place must have frequent visits by students since there was a tour guide that gave a spiel in the antechamber. The guide, a middle-aged man with heavy jowls and short-cropped hair, gave a toothy smile as he surveyed the youths.

“Welcome to Ysserys Workshop,” he began. “Her Imperial Majesty, and the Prime Ministers have given the Ysserys clan a great responsibility. Along with its vassal clans and partners, chief of which are the Orgilles and Cheval Clans, we create many of the nation’s essential equipment. Our research division also innovates new weapons and armour to supply our legions with the necessary gear to protect us! From Colossi to Battlewings, flying shuttles, and Chaos ships, we make them here at the workshop!”

“Are we just going to look around?” Yuriko murmured to one of her classmates, a shorter girl with honey brown hair in pigtails.

The girl shook her head. “Didn’t you read the program, Miss Mishala?”

“Ehehehe.”

The girl’s cheeks started to colour a charming pink, and Yuriko noted that her eyes started to glaze. She coughed and hardened her Anima, isolating herself, and more importantly the girl, from the effects of her Anima. Her classmate’s eyes cleared and she shook her head in a daze, but she smiled brightly at Yuriko.

“I think part of the tour brings us to the engraving chambers where we’ll have the privilege to try our hand at etching runescript lines into Colossi components.”

Yuriko’s interest perked up. “Really?”

“Yup!”

The guide continued talking, though it was mostly about the founding clans and the Empress’ trust in them. It took nearly half an hour before he wound down.

“Kindly group yourselves into fives and follow the guides. Ysserys had thousands of individual workstations and each group will visit a different one…”

Yuriko wound up in a group with the girl she spoke with, along with three boys who avoided her gaze shyly. She felt their stares on her behind when she walked in front, but she didn’t mind. Not much anyway. The original guide was the one to lead the group and they walked down a narrow passage that twisted and turned.

“Why aren’t these straight?” Yuriko asked. Ever since the Labyrinth, no, ever since she got thrown into a sinkhole by that swarm fodder Skybeast, she had a dislike for twisty tunnels. The corridors here were in the middle of the building and if they hadn’t been well lit…

“The corridors follow the runescript paths, of course,” their guide cheerfully said. “Ambient Chaos gathers in rivers of density and by creating such passages, it reinforces and shifts Chaos’ purpose to the builder’s Will. Here, the passages ensure that in the nodal chambers, denatured Animus does not turn to ambient Chaos.”

Thankfully, the twisty tunnels didn’t last long. They arrived at a large chamber, certainly more than three storeys high, proof that they were underground. It had been difficult to tell. Yuriko’s idle thoughts were jarred when she saw what was inside the chamber though.

A Chaos Ship. It wasn’t a luxury yacht like the Silver Tiger, nor was it a merchant’s vessel like the Ebon Horizon. No, this was clearly a warship. The framing was complete, but the hull plates were less than a tenth done. But there was no doubt that it was a warship.

And right smack in the middle of the thing was a glowing figure that looked disturbingly like a Chaos Lord.