Sobon eyed the two guards from the Lai family carefully. It was the following day, now, and Sobon had been careful to keep her secrets from them carefully, and for her part, Lai Shi Po seemed to have worked hard to conceal the fox deity that guarded her behind layers of barriers. They had adjourned from the expanded space to the City Lord's palace, where Lai Fen Wei and Lai Ton Dan had intensely questioned the Lai Shi Po and Lord Shida about anything that might have harmed the pride or standing of the Lai Family--or their 'face,' as they put it, which Alassi inexpertly translated as something of the sort. Lord Shida had apparently been through this before, because he nimbly avoided giving them facts without lying to their faces.
They were exceptionally serious people, with aether so rigid that Sobon would have called it brittle, if not for their intense strength. Although Sobon wasn't sure that either was a match for Lai Shi Po when she was fully revealing her strength, they were each in the Gem phase of qi--meaning that they had successfully incorporated enough Starbeast Core tissue to begin to handle truly intense qi within their own bodies.
Their true strength was relative and imprecise, of course, but Sobon felt that any attempt to analyze them too deeply would be met with very humorless aggression. So Sobon also said very little, and kept her inspections mostly passive.
Overnight, Sobon had attuned her right humerus bone, and shifted the attunement pattern to her left radius. Her upper arm bone was for more than the defensive constructs she'd used the day before--it was a set of subroutines, algorithms, and pattern pieces meant to let her swiftly draw and maintain whole array circles at once in free space, a specialty of Outward Spin aether. It was not quite the right set of patterns to let Sobon immediately and freely create new aether dynamos; the patterns used were not completely free of intent, and so while Sobon could create aether generator using them, she couldn't attune with that energy.
Nevertheless, when Lai Shi Po and her two minders reappeared in the morning to talk, Sobon--after deactivating and concealing her dynamos and the adaptation array--met them with a serious and humorless look that mirrored Lai Shi Po's extremely put-upon expression.
"I would like to invite you to an auction," Lai Shi Po said immediately upon arrival. "And of course, I would encourage you to participate. Anonymously, if you prefer." Lai Shi Po studied Ki'el and Mian, who were both uneasily eyeing her guards. "I doubt that you and yours will be as... overwhelmed by the selection of good available this far from the Empire, but it is instructive to see who shows up to bid, what they are buying, and for how much."
Sobon could read Lai Shi Po well enough to suspect the woman had hidden motivations, so of course she accepted. "What time, and what sort of things do you think would be of interest to be sold?"
"In two days," Lai Shi Po said. "The Emerald Sun Trading House cannot get invitations to all of their patrons in less time than that. Some are reclusive or... distant. As to your other question..." Lai Shi Po gave Sobon a flat look. "I suspect that anything you are comfortable leaving in the hands of the highest bidder will nonetheless impress, especially if it can be described in a way that makes it sound exotic and novel. Weapons and defenses, and spatial rings, are of course favorites."
"Hm." Sobon momentarily suffered from an attack of pride--wanting to create something Lai Shi Po would consider 'profound' and steal the show--but let the thought fade, instead thinking about what could be practical without giving away secrets. It was when Lui stepped out of the door behind her--the girl had been given part of the morning off by Lady Fau, as the latter was hosting Lai Shi Po and her guards--that Sobon recalled the girl's interest in Sobon's purified aether. She'd suggested that a tool to purify another's qi would be useful, and perhaps do good.
There were a number of different ways to create or structure such a tool, Sobon reflected, but the best of them either synthesized qi--which was too powerful a tool for Sobon to give, if she could even do it on short notice--or required a sample of qi completely without intent. But the qi of the inscription itself would have intent, and the person using it would insert their own flawed qi... so the pattern would have to avoid anything bleeding over into the result, and especially, prevent anything from tampering with the sample.
Sobon, looking up from her thoughts, just nodded at Lai Shi Po. "I believe I'll have something. Useful, and profound. I can give you one--"
"Don't even think about it," Lai Shi Po said, with a dark smirk. "Put more than one up for auction. If I bid on one, any others will go for a substantial amount."
"Then, I would like to discuss the possibility of buying certain specific elements..."
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Later, when Lai Shi Po had gone to handle other business and appease her guards, Sobon began architecturing two arrays--one, based entirely on the Ri'lef notes on qi, to synthesize a single mote of intent-free qi, and a crown that would purify qi that was circulated through it. A crown, in Sobon's mind, because that would purify qi closest to the mind first, naturally removing many corruptions and effects.
The crown was also a nod to ancient Crest; the first Emperor of Crest, back when the empire was still limited to its origin planet, had worn a simple crown, itself a potent aether defense against corrupting influences, though Sobon doubted its nature was as simple as what Sobon was crafting. Masters Cuil and Tare had been explicit in their intent; the Emperor needed a leader who was unaffected by various aether maladies which were passed on by social means. Their "political filters" were works that had been studied for ages... in theory.
In practice, the first Crown of the Emperor was destroyed along with the first Emperor. Master Tare, who would later succeed another temporary Emperor, had much more private means to accomplish the same thing, and all those who followed kept their secrets. There were other crowns, but none that fulfilled the same role.
Although Sobon knew it would take some careful work to design the Crown, her larger concern was for the ability to generate motes of untarnished qi. Doing so would require creating multiple, higher spin aethers, without using any tarnished qi in the process. Sobon ended up doing so by creating a set of aggressively minimalist dynamos, with short and hair-thin threads, and fewer lesser dynamos per greater one, but even so it quickly became a pain to create enough matched dynamos for her purposes.
Sobon sent along a request to the Corona for it to verify her mental math on higher-dimensional architectures, and at the same time, sent along a couple questions to the Ri'lef engineers. To her surprise, in this instance, the Ri'lef got back to her almost sooner than the Corona--and the Corona, being an aether-based computer, took very little time to compute a few dimensional vectors.
[ To: Ri'lef (Industrial Second) K'val, Re: Mythic aether. Two things. First, I take your general (radio silence) as indicative that there has not been another outburst of mythic (shear) problems. For practical reasons I have demonstrated some ability from someone who has not seemed to be affronted or confused. She referenced something that she indicated was prophetic, or was interpreted as prophecy, regarding the origins of the Djang Empire leader, which may be problematic. Do you have the ability to identify myths in any capacity, or determine details about one? ]
[ Re: (Unspecified) ], came the immediate return. [ Myths can be only be identified by (aether signature intent from one viewing the myth with detachment, as a scholar). ] Sobon blinked at the packed concept, and internally retranslated it as (academic intent), storing the packed concept separately. [ For the former, we have been tracking a mythic shear candidate affected by your actions, but they are remote. Projections indicate an encounter within two weeks. ] After another moment, there was another pulsed message, containing only a qi signature, which Sobon thought she recognized, but only filed away for the moment.
Sobon did take a moment to see if she could formulate a proper aether intent to convey the message that Lai Shi Po had summarized, but on examining the result, was positive that she could only create intent for the discussion she had with the woman. She briefly considered how to ask the woman for a qi signature of the myth, but pushed the thought away a moment later.
[ Re: Qi, ] Sobon sent after another few moments. [ I am attempting to create a qi purification matrix, requiring a sample of (zero-intent qi). My naive interpretation of the containment algorithm is this: (attachment 1). Do you have a more complete solution? ]
There was a surprisingly long period, nearly half an hour, before Sobon heard back from K'val on that message.
[ We have finished designs for qi purification matrices at large scale, but the (intent) of your design indicates personal-scale purification. That's a noble thought, and I passed the design to the appropriate team members. Their collective assessment is that even a simple design will require significant exotic materials, though (Starbeast Core) is an acceptable substitute for aether currents below (1.74 (decagems)). As you indicated, the shielding necessary is the complicating factor. It would take material weights around (the Actinide element series) to properly block all intent with clearances below (3mm), which is problematic. Additionally, these changes to your design are suggested: (attachment 1) ]
Sobon, busy with her mini-dynamo construction, paused and rubbed her head at some of the foreign numbers, doing the conversion math in her head. The Ri'lef, for whatever reason, used a (gems) unit of qi which seemed an arbitrary amount... although, if Sobon were to guess by the intent, had something to do with the Gem phase of qi. That was a frustratingly unspecific point in development, since even the Ri'lef notes on qi gave startlingly inconsistent ranges for intensity and throughput, and Sobon sent a terse reply requesting clarification.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
The numbers that came back were less important than the framing. K'val's mental concept of one Gem of raw aether was the amount required to create a (1mm) cubic sample of solid aether crystal. That was a small sample--but aether crystal was dense, so it worked out to a modest quantity of aether once expanded to a useful state.
After considering that, Sobon was willing to accept seventeen gems of aether as the upper limit to how much her crown would purify at once. A master wouldn't be able to simply push their entire spirit through it, but then, none of the materials Sobon was working with would stand up to that kind of pressure. It took specially manufactured high-aether materials to do anything of the sort.
Sobon sent a mental thanks, and then followed up with a quick double-check of her understanding of the qi synthesis process, which K'val found two minor quibbles with, ones Sobon thought she would have found herself in time. But with the finished designs, and after forming a simply insane quantity of mini dynamos, Sobon began casting them out, forming a large number of Inward and Outward spin dynamos.
Then, with some concern and with careful attention to the geometry sent back from the Corona, she began arranging those dynamos through higher-dimensional space to form Onward and Reverse-spin dynamos. They were dangerous energies to have in pure form, but when Sobon grasped them and spun Onwards and Reverse, she could feel herself getting a bit giddy as time energy passed into the physical plane, even bound into the strict limits of the dynamo. Of course, in order to form even higher spins, she needed several of each...
Sobon slowly and carefully, formed Superior and Inverse cycles once she had the correct number of Onwards and Reverse dynamos, feeling the odd sense of fate energy itself passing through her hands. It could have been a heady feeling, but Sobon knew just how little effect such a small thread of fate magic could have--not enough, in most instances, to so much as deflect a sword strike, especially not in a world where qi, their replacement for aether, already included small bits of fate magic within it.
Sobon, feeling the foreign energy passing through Alassi's spirit for the first time, very carefully went back to forging Onwards and Reverse dynamos, then--carefully--another set of Superior and Inverse ones. She would have preferred to stop there--but qi, pure qi, required a sample of the next higher energy.
Hyperior and Ulterior, although Sobon only needed the former. Sobon had seen the math required to make effective use of them, but not studied it. Even Superior and Inverse aethers were ridiculously complex, to the point where Sobon didn't doubt the energy was used to manipulate the course of worlds. Crestan aether theorists summarized the energies of the next level as altering the laws of reality, but Sobon wasn't sure what that meant, and the Crestan Navy rarely used it, except to stabilize warp and power cores.
The equations to do that with the energy had come from the Founders themselves, and while Sobon was told that their people now understood those equations, the Empire of Crest had done little else with the energy.
In time, though, Sobon was able to very carefully create just one tiny mini-dynamo that produced Hyperior-spin aether, and when she broke off even the smallest amount from its thorn, she felt an effect flood through her whole being, just by having the energy within her grasp. Although the effect passed, for a moment, she could sense... everything, from her blood vessels and the fine hairs on her skin, to small qi blockages and inefficiencies in how she had attuned her bones. And she could sense Alassi's spirit, watching with some detachment, while the membrane surrounding her seemed to slowly decay.
When she blinked away the effect, Sobon could tell that holding or using the energy hadn't specifically done anything. And that was fine--it would have been stranger if it did, since she was doing her best to hold the energy without using it. If she failed to do even that, she couldn't create perfectly neutral qi samples.
Once she had satisfied her curiosity, Sobon still needed to recreate all of the lower dynamos, but each required less. Soon enough, Sobon had the ability to create small samples of each of the aether types, and with the qi synthesis process as laid out by K'val, Sobon was able to create a first sample of pure, untouched qi.
As expected, it was... underwhelming.
Although Sobon held the theoretically perfect qi in stasis, she could find very little to differentiate it from any other qi she sensed, except that it felt... clean. That was all the point, after all; qi was definitely a profoundly complex form of aether, and a suitable gift from the Founders to a growing world, but seeing the extremely difficult creation process didn't change what it was. And yet... when Sobon finally gave in and absorbed the first mote of perfect qi, she felt like impurities from around her body shifted, as though that one drop of clear water had diluted a muddy puddle. That made little sense, since Sobon knew her own qi was much cleaner than most... but she shook off the feeling.
It was easy to forget just how fundamentally different it was for Sobon to use pure aether. When pulling aether from her dynamos, she didn't need to worry about controlling every last stray impulse, didn't need to fix every last nervous tic. Those whose aether was always tied to their bodies had to fight every last impurity in order to reach profound heights; Sobon only needed a sample. She considered that, as she synthesized another few drops of purified qi, mentally studying the effect as she absorbed them into her spirit.
In the end, Sobon decided, it was probably--no, definitely a bad idea to give people truly purified qi like that. She could, in theory, create a prototype for herself, or Ki'el, or others that she found worthy, but Sobon understood something after reading the Ri'lef notes on qi, and comparing them to her own advancement: she understood that she was cheating, and it was only acceptable because it was her, and not someone who would abuse the ability.
If the aether she used was from her dynamos, she could pass more energy through her body without risk of mutation, because the impurities in aether multiplied the chances of mutation by large factors. If she was using aether from her dynamos, she could attune extremely quickly, because the dense aether she pressed into it would have the desired effect without consequences.
Someone with absolutely pure qi could advance nearly as fast as Sobon had, and Sobon wanted to make a tool that they could simply wear and cycle their qi.
While Sobon considered that, she retrieved her samples of Starbeast core and synthesized more purified qi to wash them with. As when she put the motes of qi in her own body, the purified qi seemed to draw the impurities out of the substance. Again, Sobon mentally acknowledged--if people could reuse core tissues so quickly and easily, they would kill each other and just take them.
Still, the qi washing process wasn't perfect. Although the less-tainted sample was probably clean enough to use right away--and that was enough to perhaps create three crowns, if she limited her core use to necessary regions--no amount of purified qi could completely remove the deeper attunement on the other sample.
With some regret, she summarized her thoughts and sent them back to K'val, suggesting she wanted a maximum clarity, or perhaps, to redesign the purifier to work in stages, so that it would take a long time for a local to reach a problematic purity level--but with an override for Sobon, or anyone he taught the trick. As before, the engineer didn't immediately respond, and Sobon imagined that the Ri'lef were taking the time to actively speak on the subject.
It took another half day before K'val responded with a finalized design, one that, to Sobon's mild surprise, was complex enough that even she couldn't read it completely. In searching through the design, though, Sobon came to understand exactly why--the design took more time and space to design a proper security system than Sobon was expecting, because the overall layout of the purifier had the purifying qi very obviously moving in different loops for different stages. It would be easy for someone to identify what should happen next, and somewhat difficult to prevent them from actually succeeding, especially once they had powerful enough qi to break the intent on the inscriptions.
The careful inscriptions also used up more core material, leaving Sobon producing at most two with what he had left. Sobon didn't hesitate to use it all, as well as other materials he had gotten from Lai Shi Po, and didn't skimp, in designing the crown, on making it attractive. She added gold, chromium, diamond, and thin layers of bismuth, all to give it an appearance that was undeniably shiny, and when she identified a region of the crown far enough from the main inscriptions to be usable, she made sure to add a simple qi routine to protect the materials.
But as she was inscribing, Sobon began to feel odd. And as she considered all she knew of aether and qi, she came to decide that the feeling she was getting was specifically from the Hyperior Qi that she had used. It was odd, to be sure, but Sobon understood that the crowns she was constructing would last through time--and therefore, any time or fate component to their qi echoed back down to the moment of its creation. While most qi would be muddied and unusable after a few years... Sobon was still creating a mote of pure qi which would remain pure qi as long as the crown was usable, and that qi's echo would not end.
For the moment, however, it was in flux, because what Sobon did now could change its future, and those many and myriad futures were all rolling in like ripples on a pond, one after another, each sounding much like those that come before and after yet never quite the same. From Sobon's limited understanding, she only had a certain window before that flux would damage the qi, and so she tried to close her eyes and "listen" to the echoes of the future.
It could have been maddening, if Sobon were too invested. There was a lot of information there--an unending parade of faces and places, glimpses of futures that would never be, of people that might not even be born, and at the end of it all, a shadow, watching the flux from a different perspective. A shadow that, Sobon knew immediately, was someone he could not contend with.
Not the Diamond Lord. The only threat that could be worse.
So Sobon considered her options, and the mote of Hyperior Aether burned within her, trying to suggest not only that she could change the future, but how. And she listened to the echoes with a slightly different intent, filtering them based on what aether impression she left on the crown, and she was left ultimately with the impression that it was to be based on Inverse Qi.
Inverse Qi, which the Ri'lef called Corrupt, was specifically the qi for avoiding certain fates rather than bringing others to fruition. And as Sobon studied the future with that insight, she saw patterns, not just specific instances, that she wanted to avoid. And so, with very careful and specific intent, and using her purified Inverse dynamo, she left that impression at a specific place within the crown, empty of other intent but close enough to the massively complex pattern that others wouldn't dare interfere with it.
Almost immediately, the future of the crown clarified, no longer flickering through uncountable futures, and now selecting among only a few. And to Sobon's relief, the same few faces kept appearing in the many futures that the crown would see.
With care but also more speed, Sobon forged a second crown, beginning to understand in the future she saw echoed that certain things were missing--not occasionally, but always. There was a sense that the missing thing still existed, but it was far away--touching the future, but not acting.
Sobon could have studied and contemplated the futures she'd seen for another week or month, but the time she'd spent creating the crowns added up, and she had only hours before Lai Shi Po would come to bring her to the auction. So she cleaned herself, now too distracted to be grouchy, and forged two steel boxes with gold trim, before reconsidering.
Gold was a low metal to these people, shiny but otherwise unimpressive. So Sobon went all the way in that direction, forging a box of Bronze to hold them, and on the cover, she put the same decoration she had put on the crown.
The symbol of the Empire of Crest.