Among the many tasks that vied for Sobon's attention was money, and in that respect, spent much of the next day and change studying the complex inscription that was the inert space ring he had gotten from Lai Shi Po. Although she had quickly gotten the idea of exactly what kind of intent was intended to be put in the empty inscriptions, it was worth double checking the logic.
So Sobon used the mental white board provided by the Ri'lef's memory augments, the ones that had come with the Corona's knowledge databases, and sketched out the entirety of the spatial ring's inscriptions, annotating the diagram with the obvious logic behind it. As Sobon had suspected, a quality space ring was vastly more complex than simply placing a bit of pocket dimension within the physical substance of the ring; the majority of it was various kinds of user interfaces, with a whole section of the ring set up using what amounted to logic glyphs. But with no provided intent, almost none of those logic glyphs meant anything. Or to phrase it another way, they could mean almost anything.
Even so, there was a logic to it. There were arrays to detect what kind of objects were in the space ring, and arrays to detect the will of the user, and attention directed at the ring in particular. Once Sobon was in the mind of crafting a user interface, she began to see patterns. One whole block might have been interpreting words, especially names, and testing whether the user meant one thing or another by them. Another might pushing an impression of each object in turn to the user, so that they could know everything inside, and select one. Another section seemed to connect to the insertion and removal arrays, and might alter the way either one behaves, perhaps to put an object in a specific place in the ring, or make an item leave the ring in a specific orientation in the user's hand, or out in front of them, perhaps on a floor or table.
Sobon made three different marked-up copies of the design, refusing to be satisfied until she had a version that accounted for every character on the ring, and which had a layout that an intellectual, perhaps even elitist woman like Lai Shi Po would approve of.
However, Sobon found herself disapproving of the result, not beacuse Lai Shi Po had failed, but because the woman was forced to work within the bounds of flavored qi. That was, admittedly, a guess, but it was a guess that had successfully accounted for characters on the ring that Sobon would have little use for otherwise, characters that held, added, or modified specific properties to the qi flows within the ring.
Sobon chose not to experiment with the first ring, and instead filled in the intent the way she thought Lai Shi Po had designed it. Encouragingly, when she was done, the ring functioned in exactly the way Sobon's diagrams suggested it should. Sobon was able to take various objects, stuff them into the space ring, and then either recall them by name, or rummage through the ring and select them by hand.
Sobon did these experiments, of course, in the courtyard, which meant that Mian and Ki'el were able to see. Sobon was aware, as she focused, that Ki'el recognized the ring, and explained briefly about Lai Shi Po, to which Mian responded fairly loudly.
"Lai Shi Po!" He whistled, loudly, setting his blade down entirely. Sobon glanced over, noting the nicks in the blade, and remembering that she hadn't actually taught the man to use external qi, not after needing to run and fetch Ki'el. Without that, the enhancements she'd put into his blade were just inert. Perhaps damaged now. "Isn't he famous? I've never seen anything of hers, but I know I was in town--not here--when there was an auction, and everyone was talking about a work from Lai Shi Po."
"She," Ki'el said, smugly. "And you have seen something by Lai Shi Po." She held out her wrist, showing off the bracelet that hung there.
Sobon returned her attention to her work after that, mentally adding one more item on the list of things to do.
Once she had confirmed that the ring seemed complete, of course, Sobon dedicated a new scratch sheet to an improved version, though that wasn't her next order of business. In fact, Lui had been approached by a man who claimed to be a builder and that the City Lord had asked him to work for Sobon. Since he had not re-appeared or left much in the way of details, Sobon dedicated a large part of the morning to tracking him down, finding a business called the Tosh Min Do Building Company.
The only one obviously present was a man Sobon would learn was the son of the current president, who took Sobon to meet his father, using a private transport array that left them somewhere outside of a mansion, somewhere in the mountains. After some words with the guards, the father, Tosh Min Fam, came out and spoke briefly to Sobon, saying that he was currently busy under contract and would be for another couple months, but they could possibly spare a couple workers to do light work.
Sobon put the decision off, but asked for references to raw materials suppliers, and with the son, Tosh Min Dim's help, she visited many of them over the course of the afternoon, collecting things like sand, topsoil, stone, clay, glass, coal, leather, cloth and thread, and various metal stocks into her space ring. Tosh Min Dim watched that part of the process with obvious envy, but said nothing.
One of the more interesting finds, though Sobon didn't say anything to the suppliers, were large lumps of volcanic stone, which were not exactly given away cheaply, but were clearly understood by the locals to be decorative. Sobon, using an aether detection pattern, recognized them as being dense with chromium, aluminum, and other minerals that she wasn't sure the locals had isolated yet.
Of course, exploring and refining metal structures was a time-consuming task, and not on Sobon's immediate to-do. No, the purchase she was happiest with in that regard was the bulk coal, which--while it wasn't pure carbon--was close enough that Sobon could adapt her relatively few material disassembly and synthesis patterns to creating diamond.
There were plenty of uses for diamond--but even if Sobon could mass-produce the stuff, which she could not, the most practical use was as fill for engravings. Carbon, and therefore diamond, was an excellent channel for aether; however, its resistance to aether was low enough that it was a poor material to engrave upon. An engraver who tried to place an aether pattern in the negative space left when engraving diamond would find that the pattern slipped out readily, tanging with itself and fouling the intent. Even when using it as fill, one had to use different methods, adding firmer resistance at the boundary between concepts.
But diamond, partly because it conducted aether well and partly because it conducted heat well, was still an excellent choice for simple but high-energy patterns. Sobon synthesized a large quantity of diamond dust and contained it in a small clay jar, then formed a basic rod from the relatively low-quality local steel, added something like a hilt grip to orient the holder, then did a more thorough engraving of the basic barrier-blade pattern.
In truth, while she had formed the two barrier-blades with the express intention of giving one to Ki'el, she hadn't expected the girl to become attached to hers. The quartz rods could in theory hold up to the strain of the barrier blade indefinitely--but only if it's not being used to defend against, or attack, a strong qi field. The one that Sobon had used to defend against a cannon blast had survived the strike, but not without damage.
To save herself some trouble, Sobon did include in this version a version of the blade that was much blunter, so that she could more safely use it while training, and added another mental switch to start or stop venting cutting aether from the cutting edge of the blade itself.
It was perhaps fortunate that she showed the result to Ki'el at that stage, because the girl made a face at the notion of cutting aether. "I feel that the form of the blade itself is very pure," she said, her voice very blunt. "I do not wish for a greater ability to cut. If it is required, I will find a method to do so on my own."
Sobon frowned, but took the girl's words to heart, and instead added aether channels instead of vents, and adding a third form of the blade, which replaced the form of it entirely with something more like a baton. With her qi, or aether, guided along the length of the blade or shaft, she could add her own intent at her leisure, and reinforce the strength of the it without straining the aether scripts the rest of the time.
When she was happy, and Ki'el didn't seem to object, she finished the design, measuring and sizing the weapon to Ki'el's hand, adding a metal crossguard that matched a similar aether structure that would appear when it was active, and then filling the engraving with diamond powder and fusing it with a script. Then, she wrapped the hilt, and offiered it to the girl.
Even the deactivated hilt looked right in Ki'el's hand, Sobon thought. It was slim and dangerous, but not aggressive, not yet. Even when Ki'el activated it, and even when she enforced it with her own aether, the blade didn't radiate power. If not for its disappearing act, one would be tempted to think it was just a normal blade of a strange material.
As she switched it to the blunter sword, and then finally the baton, Sobon could sense Ki'el's increasing comfort with the weapon. It wasn't hard to imagine someone trying to take advantage of her, when she was holding back and using the baton form, only for the girl to convert it to a sword form if she believed that her opponent really deserved it.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
That evening, after finishing their meal together, Sobon looked to Ki'el and Mian, and said, "Tomorrow, I need to teach you about manipulating aether, and qi." The two nodded, Mian looking excited, and Ki'el determined. Although she still had much to worry about--still including money, in spite of knowing that she'd accomplished much by succeeding at Lai Shi Po's test--Sobon couldn't look at them and not see that they needed guidance. And, as far as Sobon was concerned, she would need to be able to count on them to at least take care of themselves, and Sobon's home. Not that there was anything they could do, if the Djang elite figured out who their opponent was, but against local threats.
So in the morning, they gathered, after Lui stepped out to go to the alchemist's. Mian's eyes had a strange expression in them, one that Sobon wasn't able to quite determine. Sobon, after measuring both him and Ki'el--noting again that the girl was on the threshold of gold qi--cleared her throat and began.
"My first body when I was brought to this world was a boy named Jom," she said. "He was a street rat in a Djang colony on the other side of the world, more or less. He had so little control over qi that the locals couldn't even measure it--less than a half-star, they said. They considered him absolutely worthless."
"I was able to take his body and spirit into Iron Qi within a few days. This, Mian, is your first lesson regarding aether--aether is a part of life, inextricably. There is nothing which is truly alive, which is not already touching the aether." Sobon glanced at Ki'el, who also seemed interested. Mian, though, was having a moment. He'd done that a few times, lately.
"Aether is a special substance in the ...world," Sobon corrected her language at the last moment. "It connects things, and it grows in complexity and strength over time. While your body has its pieces and parts, the aether within is what connects it, giving birth to soul and spirit. Your soul is you, fundamentally, while your spirit is how your body thinks of itself."
"To use qi at all, the aether of your soul must connect to your spirit. You take the soul's aether and travel within your spirit, connecting each part of you more deeply to your soul itself. To use what you know of as external qi, your soul's aether must be able to pass entirely through your spirit to the world outside. That can be done in many ways, but the important thing is making sure it is done safely."
"Because the outside world is not a part of your spirit. You cannot connect to it safely. Instead, you must send part of your spirit out. This requires you to communicate your will to your spirit, and it requires your spirit to either trust your soul... or have reason to try despite a lack of trust."
"I was able to make Jom's shattered spirit, which contained no qi, do what I commanded because it knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if it did not, it would die, and because I was able to give it directions so clear and precise that even an inexperienced spirit could follow them."
"What Ki'el has been trying to teach you, Mian, is that you can press energy out from your spirit. I will watch more closely while we practice, but from what I've seen, your soul hasn't connected all the way down to your hands yet. Traditionally, the exercise to achieve this is to meditate, and focus inwards. The parts of you that feel whole, and connected to you... you take your inner energy from those places and let them flow to other areas. Don't try to force it; you're more than likely just end up pushing in the wrong place. Feel the currents that are already there."
Mian took Sobon's words to heart with intense sincerity, and Sobon shifted her focus to Ki'el, who was listening, but with a tilt to her head.
"These are not the same lessons you gave me," she said, not letting that sound like an accusation.
Sobon shook her head. "You were already able to manipulate energy outside of your body," she said. "The intent you were putting into it was wrong. It felt dangerous. But you were connected through most of your body, perhaps because of the exercises you were doing."
Ki'el absorbed that, but just nodded, her face clearing. Either she had an answer to that, or didn't care to think too hard about it.
"In your case, you needed--or, I wanted you to have your spirit create pure aether. When you learned to create the dynamo--the cycle and thorn, that was you learning to manipulate aether outside your own body. From the mark that I left on the pier, and from the spiritual sense you had of my dynamos, that inspired you to use aether and not qi."
"You also said that aether is not only energy, but place."
Sobon nodded. "It's difficult to find the right words for it, especially when talking to... people who are new at this." She frowned, not liking to have to choose her words that carefully. "Building a structure like the cycle, from a thing that connects everything together, sounds like it could be very easy. But forming it in such a way that it connects to nothing but itself is tricky. Some ways of explaining it might make you think that you can just form it in place, but that will connect it to the air and the world around you, and that's... not a good idea."
"Impure," Ki'el responded, and Sobon nodded.
"You have mostly Righteous cycles, I notice," Sobon said after a short pause. "That's not a bad thing, but--"
"You can call them right and left if you prefer," Ki'el said suddenly. "It is how you introduced them to me."
"I really ought to get used to using the other names," Sobon said, with a sigh. "I don't really like them, but I feel like more people will understand them. And naming them after spins... that concept only makes sense to someone using the Cycle. Where I came from, everyone did. But Alassi tells me that the named 'Sinister' provides meaning, that people understand it. And that makes it valuable."
Ki'el shifted a little, looking uncomfortable. "Perhaps," she said. "I simply... spent a lot of time trying to keep the word in mind. I feel uncomfortable trying to re-learn it."
Sobon laughed, just briefly, but enough that Ki'el looked like she wasn't sure if she should be happy or insulted. "I will use both," Sobon said, "but I will always refer to the dynamos by their spins, if it helps." She took a deep breath. "You have seen that there are dynamos that produce advanced aether. I don't think I can explain the math to you, but there are ...worlds above ours which aether travels through. If you arrange an equal number of left and right dynamos in just the right position, you can pull aether in a loop through the next higher world. Then, by passing your own spirit through that aether loop, you can create another dynamo through that dimen--that world."
Ki'el looked suddenly interested, her face lighting up with intelligence that Sobon knew she had, even if she wasn't in a position to use it often. "Then, the aether passing through these worlds gives them the essence of those worlds?"
Inwardly, Sobon cursed the Ri'lef and their layered essence paradigm. She knew she was explaining the math badly--and she understood that it was easier for some people to grasp. But it was wrong, and she didn't like their explanation. "That is... one way to look at it. But like the left and right hand dynamos, the two aethers of each level are the same flow in different directions, with different consequences. The second level--"
"The second level are Genesis and Consumption. You said that Genesis flows out, and Consumption flows in."
Sobon nodded. "Those are the 'spins' of that aether, outward and inward. If you imagine a sphere--a ball, the outward and inward aethers seem to flow through the entire ball at once, one outwards and one inwards." She held up a hand. "I know it makes no sense, I do. The world is simply complicated."
"But several cycles together can pull on the world and create this flow naturally."
"They can, because they already brush the edges of the world above them, just as they brush the edges of our world, below." Sobon let her consider that for a long moment. "However... that topic is beyond what you should be focusing on now. If you want to prepare for that, someday, your first task is to create very pure dynamos that have exactly the same core size--the size of the ring, the size of the thread that creates them, and the rate at which they naturally turn. Once you can easily create dynamos, it is alright--even a good idea, to destroy old ones, especially ones that are less pure."
Ki'el nodded. "I notice that your own are not large. Are they not meant to be?"
Sobon shook her head. "There are uses for large dynamos, however, we--meaning I also, am too weak to survive using them. The body and spirit must become used to extra aether slowly. With my last advancement, I can rebuild my dynamos to be bigger, but not by too much. And also, when we pass aether through our spirit, it advances our qi cores, which are meant to measure our advancement."
Ki'el nodded. "I still have yet to break into the next level of my qi. It feels like--"
"There is a lock," Sobon said. "A small lock on the beginning of the level, and a larger lock on the end. I can show you, but not where Mian can overhear. Apparently, hearing it too early can cause complications." She gestured for Ki'el to follow her into the basement, and once they were within, pressed her aether to produce a model of Ki'el's qi core out of hazy light.
"This is what your qi core looks like now," she said. "I imagine that you can see it, in your mind?" When the girl nodded, Sobon highlighted the points of the star, which themselves were really more like knots in structure. "I first thought of these things as being nothing more than decoration, but you can press your will into them in certain ways. To advance to Gold, there are two steps. If you feel like you're doing it wrong, you probably are--so stop."
Sobon took a deep breath, and then shifted the image to show the knots pulled away from the center, revealing something beneath. "The first step is revealing the core itself, which is only possible by manipulating the star points. Once you do, however, you will feel something. I didn't really stop to experience it much myself, so I may be bad at explaining it. At the base of each of these peaks is a part of your soul. There will be brief openings into your core once it is revealed, and you must ensure that the parts of your soul at the base of each star point are able to find their way through those openings, one at a time."
"Once all ten pieces of your soul enter your core ...well, it will be different for you than it was for me. My soul was, and remains, external to this body, in many ways. For you, however, your soul will merge with your spiritual core, becoming the place in which you store qi. And... I guess other things, later."
Ki'el, who had been concentrating intently with her eyes closed, cracked one eyelid to half-glare at Sobon. "You... guess."
Sobon gave a frustrated and dismissive shrug. "I spoke with... enlightened beings. Cores work differently here than where I come from. I will learn more in time, but that is mostly for later."
Ki'el, for once, let out an actual, loud sigh, seeming actually put out by Sobon's admittedly flaky mastery over all things aether. Sobon put one hand on her hip, glaring at her pupil, but Ki'el didn't say more, and simply returned her inner focus to her core.
When the two of them came back up to the courtyard, less than an hour later, Ki'el had advanced to Gold Qi.