Fatima threw Aloe out soon after that. Apparently, the scribe had taken almost an hour to learn regeneration between the tale and the visualization. And that was without taking into account lunchtime and the other conversation they had. The princess pushed her out of the room under the pretense of needing to fulfill her imperial duties, even if Aloe had never seen the woman work.

With a toll of a bell, Nasira came, who then called the soldiers to carry her back to her room.

Then a week passed.

Time blurred easily when one had nothing to do or to look at. Fatima hadn't summoned Aloe back again since that time. But the days weren't without their own little merits. Aloe doubled down on practicing stances as Infusion and Evolution still proved too risky.

Toughness, strength, speed, acuity, charm, and now regeneration.

Those were all the internal infusions at her disposal. Six out of nine. The one that interested her the most was the flowing stance, stealth and agility didn't sound that useful to her current self, whilst flowing seemed to be the application of Infusion by the imperials.

Toughness, acuity, and regeneration were her best weapons. If she had to practice something, it was those three. Toughness and acuity were obvious. The only reason why she was alive right now was because of toughness, and even if it wasn't the case, the commodity of internal infusion was too great to ignore. It allowed her to withstand her awful cramps.

Indeed, her body had already felt the moon complete its cycle, expressing it with rampant blood. But unlike before, her body was not assaulted by other pains or afflictions. Her current vitality and toughness were more than enough to endure her menstruation as if it were nothing more than the common cold.

A month in the palace.

A month trapped in a broken body.

But regeneration helped. That was why she had wanted to learn it. It may have been only a week, but with her deposit and the fact that she kept the stance virtually always up, it was closer to a month in what it respected to healing. The only time that it was down was because either the soldiers carried her to the palanquin and she shifted to toughness, or because she practiced shifting into another stance.

Which led to acuity.

A simple stance that boosted her senses. It didn't make her stronger, or more resilient, it definitely couldn't help in a fight. Yet… its power lay in preventing them. Reading people became easier under its effects, her eyes wouldn't let any microexpressions pass by. Diplomacy was her only real tool.

Back and forth, she spent the week shifting stances. Her first objective was to lower acuity to seconds instead of minutes. She should be able to shift between her main stances and weapon as a reaction. Not because she really needed it, but because the sultanzade could do so.

That was more than enough reason.

Acuity and regeneration, shifting between them allowed her to practice them both. Yet for the first time ever, she grew tired of infusing herself. Not mentally, she would have pushed herself through if that was the case, but physically.

There was no loss of vitality, but much like infusing a big plant or evolving a Blossomflame, she had extenuated her vitality deposit significantly. These constant shifts of flow weren't a net neutral enterprise, exhaustion still gathered up.

But if there was something she had, it was rest.

There she rotted in bed for a week, only knowing human contact when the soldiers brought her to the garden or when Farah brought her food and cleaned her up.

Soldiers may train their muscles, but even in bed, Aloe could train her vitality. Her Nurture.

It was tedious, there was near to no difficulty, only plain tedium, but she managed to accomplish her goals. In a week she managed to reduce her acuity shifting time to barely less than the one-minute barrier, plus also taking regeneration to two minutes.

Fast progress indeed, but the cultivator doubted most people could afford to practice the whole day without interruptions. A week had hundreds of hours, and she didn't sleep much after being prone the whole day.

Reducing acuity to only two-digit numbers was good, but what piqued her interest more was toughness. She could react fast even without acuity, but none of that would matter if death came faster than a shift in her stance. Stances, like the name implied, were meant to be changed around during the flow of battle.

A few seconds didn't cut it.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

And unlike all the other stances, switching in and out of toughness was fast.

Returning to the default, no stance state was easy. Simple as pulling a lever. When combining that with the agility in her defense stance switching, it allowed for many shifts in a single minute. Like a muscle, vitality had to be worked. Or rather, its flow.

It was easy getting into a cadence, a flow. Her switches were so fast already that she could coordinate them with her breath. In came nothing. Out left an infusion.

Constantly, restlessly, Aloe trained her infusion.

A few seconds weren't time enough.

So she decreased it.

A couple of them were still too much.

So she decreased it.

A single second seemed a huge milestone, yet it wasn't enough. She remembered how fast Fatima had put a hand around her neck or how she dropped her onto the bed. She needed to be faster.

So she decreased it.

A fraction of a second, half of it. A few blinks in terms of time, but more than enough time to react for a lethal attack. Or so she hoped. Her body couldn't do more. She knew an ill person shouldn't extenuate themselves, even if she wasn't moving her body. But she couldn't hold herself. In a way, the fact that she was under medical care was the only thing that was protecting her. What would the imperial family be capable of doing to her otherwise?

Monsters, all of them.

A minute out of regeneration, forty-five seconds out of acuity, four-point-five seconds out of toughness. That was her progress in the whole week. A week that she felt at death's door every waking moment, whether it was out of exhaustion or stress from what would happen if she didn't get stronger. She hadn't forgotten where she was. She couldn't. Her body wouldn't let her.

Every progress diminished in time, yet the more the time decreased, the more hard-fought that second gained was.

The time needed to change stances was inversely proportional to the amount of training needed. The less time was needed to change a stance, the more effort was needed to push it down. A single second in toughness felt worse than the whole minute she had reduced from regeneration.

Pure insanity.

But her dull week came to an end now. Not because Fatima had finally summoned, but because she was ready. These previous days she had tried it under the help of Farah and Zeeshan, an activity so basic that one didn't even need to teach it to their children.

Sitting down.

It was a bit painful at best, but with the efforts of regeneration and the usage of toughness, she managed to sit for a whole meal. She couldn't walk yet but sitting down no longer pained or tired her.

Meaning she could finally go to the toilet alone.

Farah was a lovely woman and would never laugh at her, but there was a limit to how long her mind could hold being changed diapers by a matronly woman as if she were a baby. Even though she would never admit it, the truth was diapers made it quite useful and tidy for menstruation. Once she was far from this palace, she would never wear a diaper again.

But most importantly being able to sit down – even more so than doing her business alone – was the wheelchair.

No longer she needed a palanquin and an entourage of soldiers to carry her. Farah alone could push her, or even better, she alone could traverse the palace. Going with the older maid to the gardens was a comfortable and relaxing experience, but today she wanted to traverse the palace alone.

"Slowly…" The wheelchair was parked next to the bed and with slow movements and a bit of toughness, Aloe mounted the contraption. "Let's get this moving."

From yesterday, she knew what paths not to take. The Palace of Asina wasn't exactly a wheelchair-friendly place.

"Oof." Aloe panted after closing the door of her chambers behind her. "This… stance… doesn't cut it."

The scribe took a deep breath and rested her head on her shoulder to switch stances. Toughness made her weaker, so having no stance would already make her stronger. But why do that when she could be far stronger?

She didn't have much practice with the strength stance, but enough to not stay the whole afternoon in the corridor.

"Okay, this is way easier!" Aloe pushed her wheelchair back and forth, testing her mobility.

Even though it was her idea to go out, she didn't have a destination in mind. She had stayed more than a month in the palace now, yet she had seen so little of it. There was an exploration itch blossoming inside of her.

Strength overflowed in her arms, but she kept her movements slow. Not only to keep appearances – having an ill person dashing through corridors would raise some brows – but also to keep the looks away from her. And there were already too many of them. She was the only person in the palace in a wheelchair, after all.

This is worse than yesterday. Maybe she wasn't donning acuity, but she could feel the gazes of the servants all over her. Observing. Judging. Stop looking! It took a lot of willpower to not rush out of the place in a mad sprint.

The palace of Asina was a monument to decadence, yet its beauty couldn't be denied. The sun entered the palace through many strategically placed windows, not only making delightful shadows but also giving the place a golden tinge. Not that there wasn't gold on the corridors already.

The wealth was so overwhelming that a single patch of tiles was more expensive than a shack in a village. And she was rolling over them. As stupid as it was, that gave her a bit of transitory happiness. Aloe tried to make the most out of her situation, no matter how small it was. Because otherwise…

Her arms were slowly tiring. Strong as they might be, resilient they were not.

She allowed herself to rest in the middle of the corridor to recover her strength. Her eyes closed, almost becoming drowsy with the warm light of the afternoon.

Then oppressive heat came. Burning and nauseating.

Aloe's eyes shot wide open, she looked around but was unable to see anything, not until she slightly turned her wheelchair backward. No. No! Nononono! The scribe turned her wheelchair against her and put all her might on the wheels, pushing them without caring about all her previous excuses. Out, out, out!

Her arms screamed with all the pressure she put on the wheels, but it wasn't enough, the heat was growing nearer.

Then.

A complete halt.

No matter how much she pushed the wheel, no matter how hot they got, no matter how much they screeched, the wheelchair didn't move. Not even a bulge. Strength wasn't enough.

Aloe panted heavily, her vision growing blurry with dread, and she turned her back again.

Aaliyah-al-Ydaz, ruler of the Ydazi Sultanate, stood behind her.