The glowing figure hung suspended in the middle of the hull and had copper wires wrapped around its extremities which then led to the metal framing. Yuriko wasn’t sure if the framing was made of steel or some other grey alloy. It could be a composite of iron and black jade for all she knew, since the metal didn’t conduct denatured Animus easily. Or perhaps that was the point?

She activated Chaos Sight and gaped at the thick ropes of Chaos coating the wires and the runescript lines across the metal.

“The Chaos warship, The Implacable,” the middle-aged man said proudly. “It will take several more Seasons to complete it, but once it is complete, the Legion Praemus will have another service vessel to protect the Empire’s shipping lanes.”

“What is it?” Yuriko pointed to the glowing figure.

“The seed of its animating spirit,” the guide said with a smile. “No Chaos ship can sail the Sea without one. It acts as the ship’s Will and prevents the vessel from dissolving. And the seed,” he continued, “comes from the salvaged remnants of Chaos lords.”

The others with Yuriko nodded in understanding but she felt a quiver of unease.

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Last week, didn’t she and another half dozen students kill captive Chaos Lords?

“No more than using Chaos shards to manufacture Zoi Elixirs,” the guide said dismissively. “The processing done to gather the core of a Chaos Lord and turn them into animating spirits is more than enough to wipe away any of the original’s personality. Besides, those cretins do the same thing too, when they create their own vessels and weapons.”

The man led them to the floor of the workshop chamber, where ten Runescribes were hard at work etching metal plates. Their engraving pens were attached to copper wires that led towards the wall. As far as Yuriko could tell, part of the Animus flow came from the nascent animating spirit.

A Runescribe looked up at them when they came close, gave them a short nod, then returned his focus to the task. Yuriko’s Chaos Sight made clear to her how the man manipulated the Animus coming from the wires, and how he leveraged his own to make sure that only the ones that came from the wires touched the plate.

It was only recently that Yuriko learned the varied categories of Animus and ambient Chaos, and how to tell them apart. Pure Animus was those that came from someone’s core, lacking any kind of Intent though controlled by Will. Pure Animus didn’t stay as such if extruded from the Anima, since it was easily tainted by the ambient Chaos.

Regular Animus was what was used in techniques. The owner’s Intent and Will shape it to varied effects. Denatured Animus had the owner’s Will stripped out of it. It was essentially a step up from ambient Chaos, and the only thing differentiating it from such was that it was relatively easy to reclaim and use. The jade cartridges that powered the Plasma Casters contained denatured Animus, and as far as she knew, so did the batteries that powered the Circuit Trams, and every other vessel and weapon of the Empire. It eventually turned to ambient Chaos even if it was contained in jade.

The Runescribe carefully kept his Animus from tainting the denatured stuff coming from the wires. Yuriko could guess why, but she asked anyway.

“The conduit contains the nascent spirit’s Animus signature. We’re building her body, after all, and if any other Intent touches the runescript, then it will cause the synchronisation rate to fall. Worst case the construction fails and we’ll have to rebuild,” the guide answered

They spent a few more minutes watching before they moved on. They watched how Battlewings, Flying Shuttles, and even Colossi, were made. Each time, denatured Animus was channelled through a copper wire conduit and used to etch runescript into the parts.

Battlewings were a device strapped to the back and, well, controlled bird-like wings to let the user fly. The wingspan was enormous, a full five or six paces wide, but they were able to fly higher than the shuttles and left the hands free to fire Plasma Casters.

She wondered how they put everything together, but that process was done in a carefully controlled, and sealed, chamber.

Finally, towards the end of the day, they all gathered into a large chamber with several runescribing stations.

“Here, you can try the process!” The guide directed them to one area. There were three groups already in the chamber and looked quite busy etching runescript lines on a slab of Venere wood.

Yuriko took one of the desks. The stool was as high as her waist and served more as a backrest than a place to sit. The engraving pen was on the right-hand side of the desk, and there was a crystal screen embedded on the desk displaying a set of runescript lines. About half of the words she understood, but most of those were connecting words. As far as she could tell, the lines instructed Animus to reinforce the plate.

Eh? Weren’t these similar to the Adamant symbol she got from the Obsidian Shard? It was a bit cruder, or perhaps simpler? Imperial runescript technology was pretty advanced compared to what she saw in Bella and the Pure Lands. Her fingers traced some of the stranger words and hovered over one that had a meaning that was tantalisingly close.

Holding? Storage? It hovered there. The intention was for Animus to linger in the node, held there by closed valves.

Are those conditional runescript? What were the triggers?

Her eyes eagerly searched the lines, locking into an innocuous set tucked away at the bottom right. She looked at the other corners, and while they weren’t identical, or even similar looking, the knots of runescript gave her the same feel. She focused on the one she saw first, staring at it for several minutes until she realised that it pertained to the condition of the plate.

The lines said, ‘if the hold is empty, open the valve’. She traced the next line over, ‘if the plate is damaged, open the valve’. That led to, ‘regrow plate’. The runescript lines here…why did they look so familiar? Recovery? That was it, wasn’t it? The old form of Recovery, the one she learned from Da, the one that required her to inlay it to receive the most benefit.

“No, it’s slightly different,” she muttered. It was the little curlicues, a different angle there, a mirrored stroke there. The gist of the runescript word’s meaning was the same, but which ones it helped recover was different. Perhaps this focused specifically for wood? Inanimate objects? Well, she committed the runescript passage to memory, figuring that if she was stuck in the wilderness and her clothes got ruined, these lines would repair it.

“Miss Mishala.”

“Eh?”

She looked up to see the guide gesturing. Most of the students were already heading out of the chamber and she was the last one left on the work desk. Flushing, she hurried after her group. They toured a few more points of interest, but most of her thoughts were consumed by the runescript lines she memorized. It took nearly no effort on her part to commit it to memory, oddly enough.

Finally, the tour ended with lunch in the workshop’s cafeteria, where they were served clam chowder in a hollowed out bread bowl, and a beverage of their choice. Yuriko picked lavan berry juice, though most of the others drank ale or beer.

She declined to return to the campus with the rest of the class since she was free this afternoon. She chose to return to the city estate directly. The noble district where the Mishala Clan’s estate was located was served by half a dozen Circuit Tram lines. Over the past weeks, Yuriko had learned the routes by heart. She needed to take a couple of different trams to get there, though, so she stood beneath the shade of the waiting shed with her head in the clouds.

An hour later, she was back at the mansion. Two women, one with shoulder-length red hair and the other with short tawny hair, Ryoko and Saki, her attendants, curtsied as soon as Yuriko entered the antechamber.

“Welcome home, young mistress,” they said in unison.

Yuriko nodded her greetings and absently followed behind them as they led her back to her chambers. They laid out a change of clothing, a yellow sundress and sandals, then stripped off her uniform. Saki left the chamber and returned with afternoon tea, and a platter of pastries. Afterwards, Ryoko picked up one of Yuriko’s History class textbooks, opened at the marked page, and started to read it out loud. She only got to the second sentence before Yuriko stopped her.

“Ah, I wish to meditate. Notify me when it’s dinner time.”

“Of course.” Both of the attendants curtsied and left.

Now that she was free of distractions…

Half an hour later, three was nothing but crumbs from the sweets, and the teapot was empty. Right, right. Focus on her problems.

Thanks to Damien informing her, at least she didn’t have to worry about reaching Sollus with her Animus reserves. He said she couldn’t reach Knight with her Facet stuck at the Novice level, but maybe she could advance it now? That was an option too, other than the Ancient’s Way. For that matter, other than increasing the breadth of her Anima, and having a thousand lumens of Animus, she didn’t know what else was needed to advance.

That’s it. And passing the Trials, of course. But, I wouldn’t worry about it.

‘Of course not! You’re not the one doing it!’

True, true.

So. She could attempt to advance her Facet to the Knight level…only…well, the reason she used the Ancient’s Way was that her Heritage wasn’t deep enough. Despite what Miya said, Yuriko did not inherit her Mum’s Heritage. She wasn’t even sure if it really was from the Mishala side, and if not for her Mien, the clan would not have claimed her. Maybe it would have been better if she didn’t have the Mien, then she wouldn’t be stuck here.

Well, she’d probably be dead in the Pure Lands instead. She chuckled to herself while she picked up some crumbs from that lovely fruit tart. While she licked her fingers clean, she considered. Her only real path was the one Damien showed her, which gave rise to some issues, too.

Imperial weapons and vessels required a denser Animus to activate and operate. Weaker ones, such as troop transports, landcrafters, and Plasma weaponry, didn’t require much, but Plasma Carronades, advanced Plasma Casters, Colossi, and Battlewings, all required at least a Journeyman’s misty Animus, if not a Knight’s liquid state.

But the tradeoff was still worth it. One limiting factor to using Fri’Avgi was that she consumed her Animus reserves three times as fast as otherwise. But if she advanced as an Ancient, then she’d have more than enough reserve to keep using the artefact without worries.

She shuddered at the memory of her last battle with the Xylarchy Colossi. They managed to defeat a dozen incarnations, but afterwards, her reserves, Chaos, all of their reserves, had run dry.

And she had barely managed to unlock the artefact’s abilities too.

So then, how to go about reaching a thousand lumens? She needed to use her Anima to contain the amount past two hundred, but so far, her attempts to hold Animus there have been futile.

Hmm, perhaps she should focus on the basics?

She settled down on her bed and assumed a cross-legged meditation pose to envision her Anima. Her core, a smouldering golden ember, was filled with Animus and Radiant energy. The mote of Radiant Essence hovered at the very centre of her core, and a quick look showed it full of its brand of energy. Her old storage for Radiant was also full, with Fri’Avgi bathing in it.

A quick thought pulled Animus out of her core and down into her hands. She created Animus constructs, side-blades, daggers, and shards. Master Ruminos’ skill of materialising real objects from Animus still had her stymied, but he had given her a primer for it. Still, that was another training path amongst others and her schedule was already packed full. Well, her goal right now was to spend her Animus and then watch how it regenerates into her core. Maybe that would give her ideas.

As her reserves emptied and her head started to spin, she tightened her focus and regulated her breathing.

Ambient Chaos flowed in with inhaled air, then spread out from her lungs, circulating with her blood before being pulled into her Anima through the core. The core was located where her heart was, but the influx of ambient Chaos from a single breath was too much to absorb all at once. Only about a third was drawn in while the rest went around her body.

Interestingly, her Radiant Refinement had left pockets of Radiant energy all over her body, and when the ambient Chaos touched upon those nodes, they were sucked in, then refined into the Radiant. Of course, it took thousands of motes of ambient Chaos before a single mote of Radiant energy was produced, a process that was incredibly slower than just sunbathing.

But that process practically saved her life in the Pure Lands since the sun barely showed its face there.

Anyway, the ambient Chaos was cleansed and processed through her core, which turned it into Animus, while the waste particles were exhaled. Or sweated out, or it would pass when she peed.

Huh. What if she drew in ambient Chaos directly with her Anima instead of waiting for it to be breathed in?