"There you go. Ground down and sharpened according to Warrior Leo's instructions," the Faith's smith I entrusted my four needle swords to said, handing them back prettier, sharper, and readier to be taken on an adventure than ever.
"Thank you," I thanked him, then swiftly took the bundle back with me to the Sentinel armory, where it finally completed my Sentinel Initiate-worthy equipment set, one aptly dubbed "bouncy flying fairy assassin" by my fellow Initiate trainees I got to test it against during spars.
Of course, "completed" was a pretty big word for a set that was still missing one of its most crucial gear.
As in, a fairy backpack.
That meant only one thing.
It was time to take my pseudo-completed set out for its first venture in the outside world.
At long last, the time had come for me to visit the Fairy House and see what I could learn from my own kind that the Faith couldn't teach me.
With no obligations to fulfill over the next several days, so long as I warned Warrior Leo beforehand that I wouldn't be attending the Initiate trainee training, and [Guided] having no objections beyond making sure I waited until I fully recovered from my latest [Will] manifestation before departing...
I had no reason to postpone this trip until later.
Hence, an excited smile tugging at my lips, I stripped off my Acolyte robe and, with only my nicest dark skin-tight bodysuit on, started putting on my bouncy flying fairy assassin set.
First came the lower layer, a piece of tight yet flexible armor called leggings made of metal-thread fabric, which I had to pretty much step into to put on, the weave tightening and settling along every contour it met without pinching or slack.
The torso piece followed, and as always, I struggled with it, having to blindly guide the back around the base of my wings, easing each side into place before drawing them together with the arming belt and securing the remaining clasps along my side.
Well, at least once it was fully secured, the metal-thread fabric perfectly flexed with my every breath, reinforcing without restricting, hugging my ribs and spine like a quiet brace while leaving my wings absolutely free.
I rolled my shoulders once, wings shifting with them, feeling how it yielded just enough, never resisting, never dragging.
I slid the arm pieces on next, sleeves made of the same fabric extending from my wrists to where they connected to the torso piece, coming together seamlessly once I did the junctions correctly.
That left the gloves for third to last, but unlike all the other pieces of this set, made of a much finer metal-thread fabric, they fit me truly perfectly, each of my fingers settling into place precisely, no excess, no stiffness, the joints bending as easily as bare skin while carrying a faint, reassuring tension.
Of all the pieces I unearthed from forgotten crates of fairy-sized equipment and had the Sentinel smith restore to usable states, those gloves were clearly my best finds by far.
Second last came what was referred to as a harness, a series of straps and loops built out of thick metal rope, one that extended from my shoulders to my hips, all without interfering with my wings, providing some modicum of defensive reinforcement.
More importantly, however, that harness was what concretized Warrior Leo's answer to my latent fighting issues.
As in, as someone whose sole goal in a fight was skewering something so important that if I succeeded, I would be instantly declared the victor, my biggest problem was when I... well, lost the ability to do so.
Hence why Warrior Leo straightforwardly told me to give up on carrying just a single weapon in the future, and make it at least two, though preferably four for redundancy's sake.
That statement was, of course, made after I confirmed for one definite time that the weapon I needed to bring my lethality to its apex was pretty much a reinforced needle, and being informed that this sort of weapon's official name was needle sword.
Not that I hadn't momentarily entertained the ideas of wielding weapons such as greatswords or hammers.
I just swiftly gave up on them when I realized that their sheer mass and momentum-based wielding methods purely and simply went against the way I learned to fight.
Once I properly secured the harness to my form, I began sheathing my needle swords one by one, and just like that, I was only lacking the finishing touch.
A helmet.
One that effortlessly slid on my head, completing my set by not leaving a single patch of skin exposed.
From toes to head, I was seamlessly covered in a tight layer of metal-thread fabric, light enough for me to forget about it, yet firm enough to remind me I was wearing it.
A second skin that would allow me to survive what could have otherwise killed me.
Done, I moved once, rotating my back, turning my feet, stretching my arms and shoulders, and felt nothing hindered, nothing loose, only a quiet declaration that I was ready to venture out in the outside world without having to fear every single giant out there.
I only needed to fear those who could catch me.
And where would I randomly clash with someone capable of catching me mid-flight, when even Warrior Leo failed to do so?
There was no way.
◇ ◈ ◈ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◈ ◈ ◇
I didn't know what I expected to feel upon rediscovering Red Sand Rift City, experiencing venturing through its streets and floors while flying out of the reach of any giant, all with a base of knowledge so exponentially greater than what it once was...
But it definitely wasn't a sense of irrelevance.
I learned of the hundreds of thousands of individuals who made this city their home.
I learned of how the rift frame was first discovered, a husk of metal completely unsuitable for living.
I learned of how it was subsequently transformed by the first who sought to explore the Red Sand Realm.
I learned of the many generations that slowly transformed the place into a proper settlement.
I learned how metal was gathered by the ceiling panes and shaped to expand the hollowed-out rift frame.
I learned how paste furnaces were scavenged and scrapped together from the guts of the Nexus Realm.
I learned of the rise of the massive factories taking advantage of the heat and winds originating from the Red Sand Realm.
But compared to the dry history I learned, to truly behold a society in all its massive complexities, in all its swarming density, in all the smallest details that rendered even the most forgotten buildings unique...
It truly made me feel small.
Everything felt so much more insignificant and simpler when I didn't know anything...
But now, even if I tried, I simply couldn't unsee the many perspectives that knowledge, flying, and confidence in my abilities had enabled me to glimpse.
Power, wealth, safety, order, potential, long-term vision, all that I already took for evident given enough time, I found their antithesis while flying over the streets of Red Sand Rift City.
Powerlessness, exhaustion, misery, hunger, chaos, all that I escaped from thanks to [Guided] and endless [Exertions], thousands were still their captors.
And bearing the name Solaena or not, there was nothing I could do.
Beyond that, I truthfully doubted if even Magister Eliott could do much of anything if he tried to wield the power and influence of the Faith to save all these people.
Civilization.
It was many things.
Filled with unique individuals, each with their own story to tell, their own hardships to overcome, their own path to forge.
But here, where scarcity reigned, it was all but altruistic.
Those people would have to save themselves, as no one would do that for them.
From the fifty-eighth floor, where the Prime Temple was located, down to the fourteenth, I truly got to witness the reason why all these books so extensively addressing the intricacy of Civilization and the societies born through it eventually stated different things that recurrently contradicted each other.
It was because they were all right.
Power could as much be the reason behind stability as abundance, scarcity, equality, hierarchy, order, and chaos could be.
Because people were alive.
At last sighting the distinct Fairy House after arriving on the fourteenth floor, I threw all my philosophical thoughts to the side, to be unpacked and discussed later with knowledgeable giants like Lorekeep Avenorium and Archivist Trius to shed some much-needed light on them, and concentrated on my [Perception].
First, and most obviously, as everyone had forewarned me about it, the Fairy House was as much the name of a given area on the fourteenth floor as it was the name of the faction that inhabited and built that same area.
And that area spreading before my eyes was special in one specific way.
It was fairy-sized.
One moment, the streets and buildings were giant-sized, the next, a huge metal wall rose, as if to symbolize a clean separation from the rest of the floor, and behind this wall laid the Fairy House.
Fairy-sized streets, fairy-sized buildings, fairy-sized shops, all integrated in one cohesive whole, and I could only wonder how lively and special it must have once been, had everything not been completely deserted.
The emptiness didn't surprise me, however.
I already came to expect it from Idell's revelation that the Fairy House had already long started acting on a plan to leave the Red Sand Sector entirely.
Any fairy who still remained was probably expected to depart shortly.
While contemplating this matter, I continued flying, leisurely heading towards the biggest building, one that could easily pass for a large-sized building even by giant standards, where my [Perception] helped me make out the faint forms of other fairies.
My approach didn't go unnoticed, and in a matter of minutes, I got close enough to be called out by the first elderly fairy I ever got to meet.
"What's a young fairy I don't know doing here?" he tranquilly asked, but all I could do was stare at him.
The fine wrinkles that lined his face.
His gentle eyes and kind smile giving him a quiet warmth.
His composed, unhurried posture as he hovered without so much as falling or rising.
His plain clothes hanging loosely, simple and unadorned.
His blue wings faded with age, showing soft discoloration and the faint, healed tears of a long life.
Everything depicted the tale of a long life.
"Are there so few fairies remaining that you know everyone?" I eventually asked back, still transfixed by the strange emotions seeing an elderly fairy for the first time brought me.
"Oh!" His eyes lit up with understanding, and his smile grew wider. "Are you the nameless young one who joined the Faith? I see your wings have finally matured. No wonder you're here, then. Let me lead the way. This is a rightful maze in there."
"I'm..." I nearly rejected his help out of the habit of doing things by myself, but upon reminding myself of why I was here, realized that a guide I could ask all my questions to was everything I needed. "I'm in your hands, then. Also, I'm no longer nameless. I named myself Solaena."
"Good name, good name. What's the story behind it?"
"It comes from a tale I read that perfectly mirrored my life trajectory. At least emotionally. It embodies a [Will] to never falter against difficulties, to never forget where I come from, as well as an [Ambition] to reach for absolute power."
"Sounds like a nice name," he casually followed up, "I hope you make your past and future selves proud of bearing this name, and I expect to hear about your exploits someday. If I'm still alive by then, that is."
"You're not actually considering dying of old age, are you?"
Curiosity scrambling my mind, I couldn't help asking a pretty intimate question out of the blue.
"As if." He huffed. "No fairy that respects itself would willingly decide to die of old age. Much better and more elegant to simply go on a last journey in search of a way to live longer. Is that something you've been taught by the Faith?"
"I simply read about it a lot. About the debate between those who pursue longevity despite the challenges, those who wish for a short but fulfilling life without hardships, and the two extremes of exchanging everything either for one additional second of [Longevity] or for an [Ideal] year."
"Bunch of forever debates, those. Been around for longer than I've been around, and I've been around for a while. Soon to be my two hundred and seventieth year, actually. I guess some debates aren't meant to have answers."
Two hundred and seventy years.
That put him at around... well, no particular event I had knowledge of.
That did say something else about his life, though, considering two to three centuries was the longevity I learned fairies had without Aspects coming to either shorten or extend it.
And two hundred and seventy years was also plenty of time to either develop one's Essence or succumb to corruption.
"So what did you spend two hundred and seventy years' worth of time developing your Essence for?" I inquired. "Can you make the city collapse? Can you survive if your head is blown off? Can you divine the future?"
"Well, considering my answer to these three questions is a straightforward no, I guess my life's worth of Essence development served no purpose," he joked with a light tone, then slowed down as we took a sharp turn to land on a ledge.
"This way is the last residential area of the Fairy House still in use. Everyone has taken residence in the castle by this point. Feel free to take a room for yourselves if you wish to settle here for some time. Let me tell you, back when the Fairy House was..."
Fly-walking inside corridors that all bore various traces of the past, scratchings, restoration marks, discolored areas, small drawings, the old fairy I still hadn't gotten the name of regaled me with stories of a once glorious faction named the Fairy House.
He told me of its most illustrious figures, glorious fairy powerhouses that rose to the top, dealing on equal footing with the likes of Sentinel Knights, Red Sand royalties, and entire teams of the Nexus Order.
He narrated the many magnificent expeditions they organized to plunder the riches and secrets of the Red Sand Sector itself, uncovering the secrets of the past.
He described their finding of a gigantic complex of ancient refining machinery fallen into disuse in the ceiling layer above, barely any parts of it still operable, though that manifestly included deadly defensive measures such as turrets spouting fire hot enough to melt emptiness itself and golems that cost the lives of many to put down.
He depicted how they once stumbled upon a pristine ecological pocket in the Red Sand Realm and how it brought a massive political upheaval that resulted in a conflict that saw all parties lose what they sought to claim for themselves.
He even described how they once partook in the battle against one of those city-sized sand elementals, the battle spilling dunes' worth of sand into the city and causing many of the industrial machines to break down from the sheer impossibility that was the task of restoring them back to normal afterwards.
The weight of history never felt as tangible as when I listened to him recount all the things I assumed he personally lived through over two hundred and seventy years.
If I wanted to genuinely learn his entire life's story, how long would it truly take?
Weeks?
Months?
So many books mentioned the lesson of looking at the past to learn from both their errors and lessons, but rationally, how much should I endeavor to learn from the past against simply learning from the present?
In the end, the further I followed that line of thinking, the more it resembled the thoughts I just had while rediscovering Red Sand Rift City.
Thoughts about only truly understanding what I read after seeing it transpire in reality.
What a strange occurrence...
"...and here we have the main dining hall." He pushed the door open, but it wasn't silence that awaited us on the other side. "Oh, and look who we have here, a whole bunch of lazy goblins."
The dining hall, just like any other part of the castle, really, was novel in that it was fairy-sized and filled with traces of history, so it made for a sight I swiftly appreciated... then took for granted.
The dozen fairies presently having dinner, however, those made for a truly unique scene.
"Are they trying to cheat us out of some coins again?"
"Sure looks like it."
"Why are you still bothering with them? Just move on to the next client?"
"But I have the opportunity to directly exchange a parcel of the Fairy House for Essence sand, isn't that worth it?"
I recognized one of the fairies currently arguing as Esion, but didn't find Idell anywhere.
As for the other fairies, they collectively made for an entrancing spectacle of colors I could only properly appreciate by realizing how bland the world I generally perceived was.
"Let me introduce them to you, that's Selen, Loran, Neril, Lian, Renoa, Kianor..."
Pointing at each fairy one by one, his voice somehow supplanted all others in the dining hall, causing everyone to look our way.
"Who's that, Stavros?"
Necessarily, after attracting such a call for attention, one fairy, Lian, asked in return, conveniently handing the old fairy's name to me while he was at it.
"This is Solaena, the nameless fairy that joined the Faith a couple of months back," Stavros introduced me, "Now that she can fly, she decided to pay us a visit. And I found her [Worthy] enough to be her personal guide."
"What's up with your wings?" Esion was the first to make a follow-up, instantly bringing up the obvious issue of my wings having mutated. "And what's up with your ridiculous getup? Are you preparing to go to war or something?"
"Essence overdevelopment-induced Essence mutation." I pointed at my wings with my right hand's thumb, then used my other thumb to point at my torso, indicating my set. "And Sentinel protocol for any outing one feels endangered by. I'm only missing a backpack to complete my set, by the way. Just saying."
"What?"
"I recognize gibberish when I hear it."
"I'm surrounded by buffoons."
"String two complicated words together and that's what you get with those delivery fairies."
"Let's go, little Solaena," Stavros said, stopping me from witnessing the unfolding chaos, "Leave them to their delusions of being Seekers. If they really wanted to learn about the infinite intricacies of Essence, they would have long followed in your footsteps."
Leaving the dining hall behind, Stavros' tour resumed as if nothing had happened.
I let things happen.
Truthfully, so long as I continued to see, hear, and learn new things, I was truly indifferent to how things turned out.
Hours most definitely passed before Stavros finally seemed to decide I had received an appropriate tour, and the place we finished in was, of course, the most dazzling room of the entire castle.
“The Council Chamber,” Stavros uttered slowly, putting a name to the vast hall of shaped metal stretching outward, every surface forged, polished, or worn dull by time, encircled by rough pillars etched with intricate carvings that stirred faint echoes of the stories I had freshly been told.
"Flying is forbidden here," he reverentially added, landing softly, the floor ringing faintly upon receiving his weight.
It did the same when I landed, and afterwards with every step we took.
"It's a real shame, you know?" He stared at the grand table that occupied the center of the chamber. "If you had been born just a single century ago, or even just fifty years, we probably wouldn't have decided to leave this Sector."
"If I had been born a century ago, I would have long left this place," I replied without really meaning to, "At the rate I'm going through the books of the Seeker sanctuary and developing my Essence, it would honestly be a miracle if I stayed here for just a decade."
"I guess it would be..." He took a single piercing glance at me, one I felt as if ripple through my Essence. "Still, it would have shown my old friends some of the harsh truths they refused to admit to the end, deciding instead to throw the fault on busted generational luck."
"One generation supposedly reaped everything, all the opportunities, all the talents, all the potential, leaving nothing for those that followed after. What an absurd conclusion to a nearly millennium-long history, isn't it?"
I pondered this obviously rhetorical question for some time, then reached a conclusion I felt was wrong but had to share.
"The only reason I became who I am today is thanks to my Origin Aspect," I started with the only part of my statement I was absolutely confident with, then moved to the more controversial part, "So what would have happened if I were born with a different one? And what would happen if every fairy was born with hopeless Origin Aspects?"
"Weak excuses," Stavros instantly asserted, his intense voice reverberating through the empty Council Chamber, returning as lonely echoes, "Nothing I ever judged [Worthy] has ever disappointed me. With or without Origin Aspect."
"It's an immutable Aspect of life, you either are or aren't. And no one is ever born [Worthy], you can only earn it through your own actions, not through your Aspects, exceptional as they may be."
I stayed silent.
A minute of silent contemplation later, Stavros opened his mouth again, but all the intensity had vanished like sand blown by the wind, "We're still ninety-seven, all more or less busy wrapping up the last of the Fairy House's affairs. But you don't need to concern yourself with this headache-inducing business, you're simply here to further your learning and get some freebies, aren't you?"
"A backpack, yes," I affirmed my desire for a backpack once more without any shame, "And if it's possible, of course, I'm also here to learn about my heritage. Fairy tales, legends, biographies, Aspect records, flying training methods, history, life advice, Essence communion, and why my wings are symbolized as threads in it... I'll take anything."
"I recognize the spark of a Seeker when I see one." He smiled warmly. "And while we may not have many books remaining, we do have a whole bunch of idle fairies around. I'm sure I could convince the most scholarly amongst them to spend some time with you."
"That would be perfect. Add a backpack to the package, and it would be even more perfect," I jested, and it was taken with the humor it was given.
Ultimately, Stavros had nothing more to add, and after making sure I knew where to head to find books, we parted ways.
"I forgot."
Only for me to then hear his disembodied voice a dozen corridors later.
"If you really want to learn what I spent two hundred and seventy years developing my Essence for, you'd better get an early start on diverging your [Darkness] Aspect into [Secrecy]."
Evidently, this time, he had decided to properly show off, as no matter how much I focused on my [Perception] and even manifested my [Will] to push it further, Stavros wasn't here.
"And for what it's worth, I think four needle swords are a perfectly acceptable amount to have on hand. You wouldn't believe how troublesome and dirty things get when you have to start using your fingers."
What I supposed to be his finger bones then cracked loudly enough to echo through the empty corridor.
That's when I simultaneously realized my own fingers and limbs could be my emergency backup weapon, and knew I wanted them to be my backup weapon.
And I guessed that's what [Tempering] was for, wasn't it?