Lorvan bowed, but remained standing, as he took up position opposite Carlos and Amber, just where Trinlen had been a few minutes before in the small room. "You called, Lord Carlos?"

Carlos leaned back, his left arm resting on the back of the sofa behind Amber's head, and forced himself to relax as the two of them gazed levelly at their assigned temporary head guard and mentor. "We think it is well past time for you to explain the details of the second stage to us. Now."

Lorvan nodded calmly. "Of course, my lord. What specifics do you need clarified for you? I stand by my original statement that it is largely self-explanatory."

Carlos narrowed his eyes and glared. "What specifics do we not need clarified! Our entire soul plan is suddenly thrown out, and where we used to have 10 soul structures we now have only 1. How does future advancement from this point work? And while we're at it, why didn't you warn us that the second stage drastically decreases aether absorption efficiency? We almost died permanently because of that!"

"'Aether?' Oh, is that what the academics call ambient mana?" Lorvan sighed. "That efficiency reduction is ordinarily not a danger, and it should have been no danger to you as well. We were all blindsided by the very existence of a means of preventing a royal guard's gear from detecting even the slightest hint of powerful magic being used at such close range."

Carlos snapped. "'Should have been' is not good enough! Your job is to keep us safe until we are able to protect ourselves, and you failed at it." He shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. "In fairness, I'll admit that even if we had known, we probably would have made the same choices. We were moving too fast and had to buy time before anything else. However, it seems to me that the Crown has allowed its long dominance to lull it into complacency, and that must be fixed." He lowered his hand and looked sternly at Lorvan. "You withheld information that could have been vital. Do not do that again."

"Yes, my lord." Lorvan nodded sharply.

"Now explain about the second stage."

"As you said, where you used to have 10 soul structures, you now have only 1. Advancement from this point works the same as it did before." Lorvan shrugged. "I don't see what there is to be confused about."

Carlos blinked and stared, momentarily dumbfounded. Amber nudged him, then took over when he didn't respond. "I understand that we will be making new soul structures again, but will the new structures be large and complex like the one we have now, or simple like what we originally made?"

Lorvan paused, then repeated himself in a tone of controlled patience. "I already said that advancement will work the same as before."

"So… Making new structures will work as if our merged super-structure were just a normal structure. We'll be making new simple structures, just like if we'd somehow reached Level 15 as copper-rank peasants with only a single structure." Amber leaned forward over her notebook, poised to write.

"Yes, exactly."

Carlos cocked his head and frowned. "Hmm. I've only ever made new soul structures from my soul shell, and only when I was just starting out. We've both used up all of our soul shell essence by now, so we'll be using aether this time, which around here is Level 3, and we ourselves are Level 15. How do those differences affect things? Will the new structures be Level 3 to match the aether, Level 15 to match us, or what?"

"Ah, yes. I suppose forming new soul structures at higher levels is unusual for your background." Lorvan smiled. "The best way to learn that answer is to try it and feel what happens. As long as you do not actually use the new structure, it will be unstable and will soon evaporate back into ambient mana."

"Alright…" Carlos took a deep breath and focused his attention inward to his soul. On the surface of the flattened ovoid, there was a thin coating of comparatively dense Level 15 solid essence, and below that a layer of Level 15 liquid mana. The essence coating that held in the mana was flexible despite its solidity, like a layer of skin, and currents in the mana caused some flowing ripples in the essence.

Inside his soul, there were the same familiar 10 regions as always; 8 sections arranged in a horizontal circular ring, and 2 more covering the central hole on top and bottom. A large, dense, and complex interconnected lattice of Level 15 essence filled the bottom section, so large that it ran up against the edges of the section and had to bend some of its connections to fit. He idly considered that he could trivially move it to any other section, but shook his head and moved on. The other 9 sections were empty of essence, but not truly empty of everything. There was a constant stream of gaseous aether drifting through.

The aether entered from the environment around them, where it was compressed to the density of Level 3, but as it passed through the surface of his soul it decompressed three times, ballooning to 8 times the volume and 1/8th the density. Level 0 aether. With that detail noticed, Carlos was pretty sure he knew what the result would be, but he did the experiment anyway to make sure. He focused his intent to begin forming a new soul structure, condensing the aether into a solid essence foundation. He had no particular purpose in mind beyond testing the process, so the new essence simply grew as a formless unstable blob. He continued observing for a few more seconds, then let it stop.

Carlos sighed. "New structures always start at Level 0, don't they?"

"Yes."

"We can absorb more aether while in Dramos to develop them to Level 3, right? What happens if we go to somewhere with dense enough mana to help develop our Level 15 soul structure at the same time?"

Amber sat upright and grinned eagerly. "I can answer that one! It's rare, but not completely unheard of, for a normal adventurer to make a new soul structure late in their career." She turned to face Carlos. "The thing that matters for safety of going to high-level areas is the level of mana in your soul's surface layer. In addition to providing energy to fuel what your soul structures do, that surface layer acts as a buffer, letting through only an amount and level of aether that the internals of your soul can withstand. Provided that the surface layer itself doesn't get overwhelmed, of course."

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"Ah, okay. Thank you." Carlos nodded to Amber, then turned back to Lorvan again. "How do synergy requirements work with the merged structure? Do new soul structures need to have synergy with all 10 of the original structures that merged together, or is synergy with just 1 of them enough, or something in between, or…?"

Lorvan gave a shallow bow as he replied. "I believe that is covered by what I have already said."

"What, that advancement works the same as before? I suppose synergy requirements for new structures are part of how advancement works, but interacting with a 10-part composite structure is not something we've done before." Carlos raised an eyebrow.

"I also stated that, where you had 10 soul structures before, you now have 1."

"One multi… part… Hmm." Carlos frowned and thought for a few seconds. "You're saying it works the same as if all 10 are now literally one single structure? Like if I had somehow crammed them all into a single structure from the beginning? Wouldn't such a structure be incredibly weak because of how versatile it is, though? I haven't noticed any loss in power from this merge."

Lorvan nodded. "The power of the structure and the amount of mana invested into it are the only exceptions that I know of. In all other ways, it works as though it had always been a single structure."

Carlos sat back and tapped on his chin. "And that means…"

Amber grinned. "It means that synergy with any part of it is enough! Some of our soul structures before had multiple uses, and synergy with just one use was enough."

"Ah, right!" Carlos nodded. "Like with the mana manipulator. Other structures needed synergy with one way of manipulating mana, not with every way we could manipulate mana. Though, wait… If it works like a single structure, does that mean if we make a new set with full orichalcum-rank synergy, the new ones will merge with it again?"

Lorvan blinked and paused for a moment. "Let me correct myself. That is another exception. A merged structure will not merge again."

"Why not? Does a merge require that every structure is at the same level of, uh, mergedness? Complex merged structures can only merge with structures of similar complexity, so we'd have to make a bunch of other merged superstructures for it to merge with? Or what if only needing synergy with one part of it is just for initial placement of new structures, and doing absolute total synergy would enable the next tier of merging? Wait, what if we had merged just 9 of our soul structures, and then finished the synergies for the last one afterward? Would we be able to merge the 10th structure in to get what we have now, or would we have missed our chance for it? Oh! Could it be possible to-"

"Carlos!" Amber interrupted his excited series of speculative questions with a chuckle. "You're fun to watch when you get excited like that, but take a moment to slow down and think. I'm pretty sure it's because there's just not enough room. Can't you feel it?"

"Uh." Carlos's eyes went unfocused for a moment as he turned his attention inward. "Oh. Yeah, that seems right." He frowned and cocked his head, considering. His eyes flicked to Lorvan for a moment, and he sent his next question to Amber telepathically. [It feels like I could still cram at least one or two more in there before it really runs out of room, if volume is the only limit. What do you think?]

"Hmm." Amber chewed her lip for a moment. [They'd have to have full synergies and somehow be made part of the merge, but if we can manage that… Then maybe.]

Lorvan looked back and forth between them, then shook his head. "Perhaps it is a lack of room, as you say, perhaps not. I just know that it has not been done, despite the best efforts of a few ambitious nobles. As for if you had the misfortune of merging too soon, to remedy that, you would have had to die and respawn to undo the merge. If you had already moved on and built new structures before realizing the need for it, the result would be… messy, to put it mildly. Soul structures would be ejected and destroyed at random until what remained was few enough to work. Recovering from that event would likely require extreme measures."

"Ah. So it's a very good thing that we finished our last synergies before the whole abduction mess happened." Carlos paused as something else came to mind. "Wait. I remember you mentioning that killing Jamar Tostral would have been a bigger nuisance for her if she'd been in the second stage, but you didn't sound like it would be that catastrophic."

"Respawning will only undo the merge if you drop below the level necessary for the merge to happen. Once you have compressed your mana again to reach Level 16, you will be safe from that eventuality." Lorvan bowed gravely. "If you had begun making new soul structures, I would have interrupted at once to warn you of this danger. Perhaps I should have warned you as soon as the crisis was past. In any case, take heed: if you choose to create new soul structures before your next density compression, you will be terribly vulnerable until you complete that compression."

Carlos leaned forward and rested his chin on his clasped hands. "But if we do not, our speed of advancement to reach that compression will be crippled. It will take 100 times as long."

Lorvan nodded. "Yes. It is perhaps the greatest weakness of high-tier soul plans, especially for the very highest at orichalcum rank. Even a tier 9 adamantium-rank noble would only have to deal with a 45-times slowdown to avoid the risk. But the power achievable by it is beyond compare."

Carlos sat still in silent contemplation, while Amber scribbled notes. Amber finished writing a note and looked up at Lorvan. "We're going to have to deal with that one too, aren't we? When our 9 new soul structure merge with each other. What level will that merge happen at?"

"Nine soul structures, with every possible synergy, will merge at Level 16. Eight structures will merge at Level 19. Seven will merge at Level 22. Then Level 26, then 32. The gaps grow increasingly large. The last threshold that I know is that 4 structures can merge at Level 43." Lorvan shrugged. "Most people never even get close to that point."

"Hmm." Carlos still didn't move, staring at Lorvan impassively. "So many non-nobles can, at least in theory, reach the second stage. Why is it a secret of nobility, then?"

"Some can, yes." Lorvan shook his head. "But few do, and fewer realize the true reason why their advancement has slowed. The difference is far less dramatic when it only involves a portion of a person's soul structures, and especially when the person had fewer soul structures to begin with. The few who do realize it keep it to themselves."

Carlos raised an eyebrow. "And if someone starts spreading the knowledge around?"

"I already warned you against teaching it yourself to any but close staff of proven loyalty. The aristocracy, including the Crown itself, would react even more poorly to a non-noble doing that."

"So… If some non-noble starts telling all their friends and acquaintances, it might end up turning into a rebellion and purge, or something."

"Yes." Lorvan stared levelly at Carlos.

"Hmm." Carlos thought quietly for a few seconds. "Are you unusual for a royal guard, then, or does the Crown teach all of its guards about this?"

"The loyalty of any royal guard is beyond question. And I advise that you be cautious about probing into any secrets of the Crown."

Carlos maintained his posture, leaning forward with his chin on his hands, supported by his elbows on the small table, for a few more seconds. Then he sighed and sat back, shaking his head. "Very well. Then on a similar topic, but unrelated to the Crown's secrets, how would the Crown and aristocracy regard helping a single individual become noble as a special favor owed to his father?"