The draft escaping the low-grade chamber almost swept Val clear off her feet.

Much like opening the curtains to a long-running, steaming shower, a billow of diffusing aether swept past her in a tangible wave. The rush of infinite energy swallowed her frame whole and she sucked in an involuntary breath at the sharp incline in aether.

She hadn’t even taken a single step past the threshold of the glass screen.

“First-timers like you make my job what it is,” the cheeky attendant smirked, jerking his head at the stone-hewn inner walls full of glimmering runes, the arcane symbols at work in producing the filtered energy. “Regrettably, they tend to pass out, too, hence why I’m here. You’re cleared for twenty-four hours biannually, so use the time wisely and use it well.”

Val snapped a mage’s bow to the attendant, quick to step into the calling energy pool and—as she’d just been told—make use of every second she could grasp. The descriptor pool turned out as an apt one, because if outside had been the vapour—mere traces of the source, and not the wellspring itself—inside resulted in a dense, sea-like presence of the neutral essence.

The AV abiding in her core appreciated its abundant company like a prune in water, and a strong pulse of desire urged her to collapse into Growth Assimilation straight away, without a second to spare. Barely keeping her wits about her, she managed to set her phone on “Do Not Disturb,” tagging the only exceptions as the house phone and—with heavy delay—Caro as well.

The chamber’s door clicked shut with a hiss and the attendant threw her an “okay” sign to mark the start of her time, parking himself outside the facility's entrance. Tingles zipped up her spine as her bare feet took to the center of the ten-by-ten space. She embraced the cooling sensation in totality, hardly taking the cold feel of stone against her back into account as she dropped to the ground and laced her fingers.

Topped off at forty-eight aether strands, Val dove right into the cultivation aspects of her breathing techniques. Slipping into Growth Assimilation came as readily as expelling her lingering feelings with an exhale.

The density of the twinkling motes frozen in the tight compartment well near broke her out of concentrative state then and there. She counted tens of thousands in her presence—static, unmoving, and refined.

Val grasped onto them, absorbing the pure energy through her palm—she didn’t want to risk trying it another way—and guiding it through her bloodstream. The dam she built for the funnel of energy grew bolder by the second, the steady stream of incoming particles vastly more in amount compared to the average remnant. Once she got the hang of it, though, the issue proved negligible in the face of boundless aether.

It was a tedious process to weave in a stronger base for her Aether Vessel, ensuring it’d be capable of withholding more energy than it could before. Too fast, and she might put a strain on it. Too slow, and there was no growth to show for one’s hard work.

Well read into the process by now, she cut her breathing technique halfway in, switching to Congruence of Prevalent Essence to refill the Aetherial Vessel that depleted so often. Expecting the process to startle her out of state, Val had to stifle a grin, delighted to realize that all the energy she required for meditation was right there.

It didn’t even take up to five minutes to replenish her Vessel, immediately falling into Growth Assimilation once more. In that manner, she cycled through the techniques, bolstering her ASC at a rate unknown to her.

This was different from the dark realm she edged into once a day. The persistent urge to catch up to her peers withdrew. Her habit of counting each individual strand—and every decimal, too—disappeared. The sense that she was the lone pillar of the Efron family, the enchanter of Runic Mead, a future Thales undergraduate, all of it, so insignificant.

As of right now, she zeroed in on simply being Valory Efron—on merely improving herself. Bit by bit, piece by piece, no matter the pace, no matter the reason. She thrived in the methodical process, one she’d never held onto for long due to her crippling ASC. Though, for her to sit through the limited hours of the Aether Chambers, she must’ve left even that reality behind, right?

“This is your four-hour warning.”

Val startled at the grainy voice, and the message was enough to disrupt her unconscious pattern of bodily growing an arcane piece of herself. Her eyelids fluttered open, blinking some-twenty times in an effort to recall just where on Spiravale she was. Noting the dimming runes and the set of flashing speakers in the corner, she belatedly turned fogged glass leading outside.

“While you do have the choice to continue, it is recommended to end the session here and use your time in four-hour periods once a month,” he advised helpfully, and the monotone pitch of his spiel—like he articulated the very same speech thousands of times before—grounded Val. “I’m also told to inform you that you have a guest waiting.”

A guest? The puzzle in itself sobered her swiftly, and—with a couple of suppressed grunts at the pins and needles infiltrating her calves—she clambered her way to a stand. The doors slid away at her approach, and Val discovered yet another frame seated on the proximate bench. Adjacent to the sleepy-looking Kidraan sat a gorgeous lady, her golden-brown hair a silky smooth curtain that came to a straight end just as it reached in between her shoulder blades.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Clad in a crisp, navy blue blazer and dress pants to match, the Auricean cut the perfect picture of, oddly enough, a lawyer working her way up in a big-name firm. She looked to have a pleased expression on her face, the smile in the corner of her mouth extremely telling. The faint glow in her eyes cut off as she glanced at the tablet in her hand, and then back at Val. “It seems my information is outdated. You’re at fifty-nine aether strands currently, correct?”

“Um,” Val sent a quick optical command to Aster, and the artifact obliged in turn, expanding the numbers in the bottom of her vision ever-so-kindly. “Seems so?”

“Eleven AS in one sitting,” the attendant hissed in half-astonishment, half-skepticism, and she could've sworn she spotted the mysterious lady’s smile broaden. He must’ve counted the growing number of confused lines on Val’s forehead, since he promptly added, “I checked your ASC beforehand. Not a rule of the guild, mind you. Just a habit of mine.”

The man hopped to his feet and slanted his chin downwards, regarding the Striker half a foot shorter than him a tad bit differently. Val couldn’t decide if she discerned amazement in his blue eyes or alarm, and she didn’t like it one bit. “Sir?”

“Sorry,” he chuckled, scratching the back of his head. “It’s been a long shift and my mind tends to go elsewhere in those last hours. That reminds me—should you decide to end your session, my time here is finished.”

“Where are my manners,” the lady chose that time to extend an arm, her hand measuredly wide. “I’m Sura Brooks, here to transform your social media platforms. Magus Kane let me know you were in the building.”

The reasoning behind her presence clicked in at the tidbit of information. Age of Atera doesn’t waste time. Val gestured her thanks to the attendant with a snappy mage’s bow, thereafter throwing a shrug in Brooks’ direction. “I don’t have many.”

The well-put-together social media specialist, which Val suspected possessed extensive facial control training to mask her inner opinions from patrons and paparazzi alike, unreservedly grimaced. “That’ll be something to fix. You may not know it, but plenty out there are already following your story.”

“Flattery’s a dangerous thing,” Val's eyes narrowed. “Especially if it’s a lie.”

“Which is why I entertain the truth, particularly so in this line of work.” Her confident smile made its way up her lips in full. “I’m proud to say that I am good at my job. Great, in fact. Want to know what got me there?”

“Sure.” Val smoothened her hair down into a low ponytail and hid a grimace of her own as her fingers came down slick with sweat. Making a mental note to definitely hit the showers, she nodded at Brooks. “Let’s hear it.”

“I followed the signs. And if there was ever a sign of how fast you’ll climb…” Brooks untucked the tablet out under her arm, propping up the screen in between two hands to display the assortment of statistics it harboured on a spreadsheet—Val’s statistics. Only one line sat at the top on the white screen, emboldened, highlighted, and written in red font in case her gaze might’ve slipped past it.

Aether Strand Count: 48

An ASC she left in the dust in a matter of an afternoon. While it might’ve been extraordinarily impressive in regular circumstances, the lady missed a major point and Val let her know, gesturing to the hallway riddled with aether chambers. “Brooks, these are meant to boost cultivation experiences.”

“You’re telling me you don’t have a high PAST?” she threw out, and when Val couldn’t stop herself from stiffening, she smiled like a cat who caught its prey. “You’re telling me your ability to snatch bronze at a crafter’s competition in a matter of months is a lie? You’re telling me your motivation to outrun, or perhaps correct, your father’s ill-cast shadow on you isn’t why you’re working alongside the best adventurers?”

That last statement, there, wiped Val’s expression clean off her face. “You researched me.”

“I research my clients, and that’s exactly what you are. Hopefully, that is,” she sighed. “I didn’t overstep any boundaries, Miss Efron. These are things—except for your PAST, of course—that show up at the search of your name. This may be just a job for some and this may be just a phase for you, but for me, it’s a vocation. I’d like to represent you properly—to tell your story, properly.”

Val glanced away, her lips a firm line of weary resignation. It had been five years—half an entire decade—since a rift took Dad, and people still believed in the utterly ridiculous things various channels spouted about him. Worse yet, her work in the First Halo seemed to be stirring up the pot all over again as her last name made the rounds, resurfacing the once-forgotten rumour for the umpteenth time.

“For what it's worth,” Brooks continued, speaking into the silence that fell over the pair, “I do not believe what the country claimed of your father, and so would anyone who gave it a fair second thought.”

“Thanks,” Val gave a weak smile, a little queasy in her stomach. All the surety she garnered in her time within the Aether Chambers, all the strength gained in advancing herself by eleven aether strands—the same amount she began with—paled in comparison to the mounting gut feeling burning a hole through her insides.

This wouldn’t be the last time she’d hear his name in a negative light. Far from it. And yet the woman quietly studying her, waiting for her to elaborate, remained willing to take on her story in spite of it. “You’ve got more guts than I do,” Val muttered.

The specialist frowned. “What was that?”

“You’re betting on me Brooks,” she spoke up, her viridian-green gaze meeting Brooks’ light brown. “I’ve basically got sixty aether stands now and I know that is nothing to scoff at. Trust me. But, several Novices in my year have crossed into triple digits in spring. It’s been a game of catch-up since Janos.”

“You don’t realize it, do you?” Brooks' cat-like smile deepened into a full-on grin and she stepped back, shaking her head. “It’s only a matter of time before they start trying to catch up to you.”