“So? How do you feel?” Zelsys asked.

“Like I should be overwhelmed,” he answered.

“It won’t hit all at once. The physical changes to your brain will take a little while. Try breathing with one lung at a time.”

Victor nearly asked if that wasn’t reliant on overriding nerve impulses with Fulgur, but then realized that it wouldn’t be necessary if he really had succeeded in the Despot of Self’s initial breakthrough. So he sat up, taking another drink and opening his meal. It was cold; he reached for his Tablet and retrieved an Ignis burner alongside a mess kit, setting the meal atop it and lighting it with a snap of his fingers.

Breath in. Breath out. In. Out. In. Out. He managed to exhale with only one lung on the fourth cycle.

He laughed.

“This is ridiculous,” he said.

“Feels like you’re cheating, doesn’t it?” Zel grinned.

“I’ve read of sects in Pateiria that revolve solely around searching for the Dao of Self, a means of total self-control. And you just… You just have it. In a scroll,” he uttered, poking at the dense mass of meat-noodles and broth.

“One wonders what else waits in the Eternal Vault. The more I learn of my predecessor, the more I suspect there is far more below the surface than I first expected… Perhaps he was plotting to overthrow the main branches with all the esoteric knowledge in his Eternal Vault. Who knows. We still haven’t even explored most of the sub-basements. Regardless… I’m glad I was right about you, as far as my gut feeling that you would be a good disciple.”

“I assumed you would push me to be more like you.”

She scanned him up and down, chuckling: “You didn’t exactly need a push.”

“I meant…”

“Yes, in terms of combat style we’re worlds apart, but that shouldn’t matter. It’s not the form, but the philosophy behind it. It doesn’t matter that you don’t fight like me, only that I can teach you effectively.”

After a short while of silence while Victor drank and ate, he spoke up: “Did you bring grandfather?”

“No.”

“Pity. I wanted to break the seal and get him out of the way here and now.”

Zel shrugged: “Zef went off with the Hulsons into the jungle and she’s the only one who can break the Black Nail, so me bringing him wouldn’t have made any difference. Can you stand?”

He nodded.

A short while later…

They returned to the Hulson longhouse the long way round, visiting the Bjorn baths for a little under an hour on the way to aid in Victor’s recovery from his breakthrough and to contribute to Zel’s ongoing cultivation. On the way out, Zel saw a Bjorn member stretching; the huge man somehow bent over backwards at a ninety-degree angle.

Later that day, Zel took some time to attempt communication with Koschei, willingly breaking the Duplex Barrier, which she could do as one of the seal’s makers since it was a purely Itrian art rather than one modified with knowledge from the Black Rod. She retreated into her mindscape and questioned the old crow; her questions were simple, pertaining to Teutobochus and his earlier mention of a pilot that seemingly contradicted other implications of the titan’s automaton-like nature. The answer received was straightforward, a little overly eager even; Koschei was clearly happy to talk about his own work.

“Teutobochus can be commanded remotely or controlled from within. The pilot is all but invulnerable while within the titan, so long as the titan remains operational. They are… Removed from the world, so to speak. The control-cocoon- Er, cockpit, can be thought of as a mini-dungeon of sorts, using the titan’s Artificial Dragonstone as a dungeon core. Should the titan be severely damaged and the “cockpit” begin to sink, the pilot will be safely ejected. I made every provision to pilot safety possible, as I built Teutobochus to be mine and mine alone, unlike its siblings.”

She simply left once she had gotten her answers, and later in the day spoke with Victor on the matter; she spoke of Teutobochus and of the Fallen Star it was guarding, of the titan’s vast power and ability to even the field of battle against Eisengeist, should it still be in operational condition. In fact, she shared nearly everything Koschei had shared with her, except for the fact he didn’t care which consciousness ended up in control, lest the information cause her disciple to let his guard down.

“Assuming Teutobochus is in a combat-worthy state… What do you say to riding the titan against Eisengeist? Not alone, obviously,” she asked.

“There are questions to which I would answer no. Piloting one of grandfather’s titans against a dragon is not one of them,” the redhead laughed. Before him were arrayed four different designs for pseudo-Iron Rider belts, a Sturmgandr manual, and a notebook filled with yet more belt designs, each in part deriving something from the design of a Sturmgandr’s engine. Victor set down the belt he was fiddling with, picking up part of a cow’s femur instead; he quickly reshaped it into an articulated humanoid, and from there altered it to match Zel’s description of Teutobochus mixed with what he’d seen of its predecessors in the Deterrence Fields.

Taking up another bone chunk, he took to forming it into a Razorflayer base as he continued speaking: “The dragon is wounded, it has a blind spot, and I will not fight alone. The worst possible outcome I can imagine is Teutobochus suffering critical damage while Eisengeist comes away only wounded… And even then, its sheer number of tails combined with Teutobochus’ size makes it a near-guarantee that I will be able to take at least one of its tail-blades.”

“I expected you to at least hesitate,” Zel admitted, making no effort to hide the fact she was happy with the answer.

“I probably would’ve hesitated… Even yesterday,” he laughed. “But… I don’t need to be convinced to get in the titan, to reach out and grasp such a glaring opportunity to impose myself on the world. That depressed teenager with mommy and daddy issues… That version of myself is dead.”

Meanwhile…