With my [Harmony] Aspect having advanced to Tier 1, I no longer merely forced my body onward through sheer strength of [Will] and [Clarity] of mind.
I synchronized everything I could.
Every heartbeat.
Every wingbeat.
Every thought.
Every [Cultivation] [Cycle].
Instead of separately correcting my posture, pulling in air and nutrients, expelling the invading heat, repairing the damage it left behind, and maintaining my concentration...
I did my utmost to make each action naturally flow into the others.
The rhythm of my wings steadied my [Cultivation] [Cycle].
My [Cultivation] [Cycle] steadied my thoughts.
My thoughts directed my body.
And my body, in turn, supported everything else.
That way, via the fundamental truth of [Cultivation], the distinctions between them gradually blurred, giving rise to a [Harmony] far deeper than anything I had previously achieved—or thought I could achieve without many more Tier advancements.
And that wasn't all.
With my mind now opened to the possibilities of my [Harmony] Aspect revealing and potentially enhancing interdependencies, I didn't stop at simply acting on my newfound body-mind [Harmony].
I also began going over all my present Aspects' applications.
My [Purity], continuously isolating and rejecting the strange heat.
My [Cultivation], tirelessly providing me with the energy I needed to carry on.
My [Will], transforming that energy into action and forcing my damaged body into a sustained state of pseudo-wholeness despite the violet radiance wreaking havoc throughout it.
My [Clarity], preserving the precision of those actions, preventing the violet sickness from distorting my thoughts or causing me to waste energy through poorly coordinated reactions.
I had previously optimized all these applications to their limits, but now, with my [Harmony] Aspect having shifted from being "merely" about [Harmony] of thoughts to encompassing the [Harmony] of body and mind...
The likelihood of my Essence and Aspects being the heart of its next advancement was too high for me not to immediately begin exploring it.
And the best way to do so was by searching for new facets of my Aspects to harmonize.
Conveniently, my [Awareness] allowed me to observe everything.
The places where the strange heat accumulated.
The minute failures spreading through my flesh.
The parts of my [Cultivation] [Cycle] that became less efficient whenever a damaged organ ceased functioning at its best.
Even if sometimes the price got a bit too [Will]ful to endure for long, it was as good a starting point as I could ask for.
Thus, I [Focus]ed first on interpreting those observations, steadily uncovering better ways to expel the foreign energy and reorganize the damage it left behind into something my body could more easily repair.
[Guided] then quietly took everything I discovered and quietly incorporated it into my stream of actions without requiring me to rethink every one of my decisions.
That freed my attention from having to consciously manage every wingbeat, every [Cultivation] [Cycle], and every microscopic adjustment required to keep my physical vessel in its new state of utmost [Harmony].
For...
The more precisely I led my [Purity] to isolate the invading heat, the less damage my [Will] needed to repair.
The less energy I expended on [Will] healing, the more I could instead direct toward maintaining my body, mind, and flight.
The steadier my body-mind [Harmony], the less effort my [Clarity] Aspect needed to preserve the coherence of my thoughts.
The clearer and more coherent my thoughts, the more effectively I could interpret the information supplied by [Awareness]...
Which granted me all the opportunities I needed to seek [Insight] into how I could improve myself further.
For now, I envisioned it only indistinctly as a novel sort of [Cultivation].
Not merely the [Cultivation] of a [Cycle] sustaining my existence.
A much broader one.
Every part of my Essence reinforcing the others.
Every action serving more than one purpose.
Every slight improvement spreading through the whole...
Not that I got anywhere beyond envisioning the grand principle of this [Ideal] [Cultivation].
For right now, newly advanced [Harmony] Aspect or not, the strange heat continued to invade me relentlessly, accumulating within my flesh and damaging me faster than my body could naturally recover.
It was just that now, my body was no longer trying to fight it alone, and neither was my mind simply forcing it to hold together from above.
My entire existence resisted it.
Body.
Mind.
And, if I allowed myself to believe... my Essence.
Not as distinct elements working toward the same objective.
As a united whole that refused to allow any manner of strange heat or damages to impede on both their respective and collective [Purity].
Thus, it didn't surprise me in any way when the balance started shifting.
Slowly.
Almost imperceptibly.
But undeniably... increasingly in my favor.
The strange heat stopped accumulating quite as quickly.
The damage stopped spreading into neighboring tissues before I noticed.
My [Cultivation] [Cycle] progressively recovered my energy faster than I expended it...
Then, several days later, I realized that the constant sensation of my organs dissolving had weakened.
My muscles still burned.
My thoughts still occasionally scattered.
But I was no longer merely maintaining myself.
I was recovering.
Weeks passed.
The distant Violet Radiance Realm Rift gradually diminished from something that dominated the horizon into an increasingly smaller point of violent light.
The violet shimmer coating everything weakened alongside it.
The strange heat invading my body grew less intense.
My recovery periods shortened.
Eventually, I no longer needed to interrupt my flight to expel accumulated radiance.
Then the black spots stopped appearing whenever I accidentally looked in the Violet Radiance Realm Rift's direction.
As for the violet elementals, they became rarer and rarer while also growing smaller and weaker.
Then, one day, while exhaustion clouded my mind after flying for what had probably been more than two weeks straight, I realized I had not sensed any foreign heat entering my body for... some time.
I continued onward for several more hours to confirm it.
Nothing.
I had finally escaped the influence zone of the Violet Radiance Sector.
Meaning...
The Everwell Sector had to be right there.
I did not celebrate yet, though.
I simply adjusted my exhaustion resistance [Cultivation] routine to account for my new circumstances and continued flying.
Another week passed before I noticed the first sign that the world ahead was changing.
A straight line.
At first, I mistook it for a fracture extending through the still-lifeless rust wastes.
Then I perceived repeated indentations along it.
Marks.
Tracks.
Recent ones.
I descended slightly and followed their direction.
The tracks eventually merged with others.
Then those merged again.
Before long, what had begun as a faint trail became an actual road worn into the rust-coated metal.
A poorly maintained road.
Uneven.
Interrupted by collapsed sections and looming, partially crumbling infrastructure.
But still... unmistakably shaped and regularly used.
Soon afterward, I finally sighted another living being that wasn't a violet elemental after what may as well have been three or four months.
A group of giants moving together beneath cloth-covered frames mounted on rotating metal wheels.
Then, soon afterward, another group heading in the opposite direction.
Then, a lone winged individual flying close to the ground.
I continued following the road.
Additional paths gradually joined it.
Traffic increased.
Fresh repairs became visible along damaged sections.
Markers appeared at irregular intervals, each carved with symbols I didn't recognize.
Then buildings emerged beyond a low ridge of corroded metal.
A settlement.
Civilization.
Established directly upon what appeared to be ordinary rust wastes.
That was strange.
Civilization within the Red Sand Sector gathered around the few places where the environment allowed it.
The Red Sand Realm Rift.
The places where paste could be made.
Here, people appeared to have simply settled upon an otherwise unremarkable stretch of rusted metal.
Split between my newly kindled curiosity and my need to know whether my journey had gone catastrophically wrong, I decided to descend and answer all my questions.
Several individuals noticed my approach long before I landed.
Understandably, with me being a lone fairy wearing what appeared to be an entirely black combat weave and a sealed helmet, carrying four needle swords, and descending from the empty rust wastes, I didn't make for the most reassuring sight.
Not that my appearance proved unusual enough to provoke anything more than wary looks.
After ignoring their reactions and entering through an open section between two low defensive walls, I found myself inside the settlement proper.
At first glance, the settlement looked even poorer than what I remembered of Volow.
Its outer structures had been repeatedly repaired.
Several roofs sagged.
The roads remained little more than rust compressed beneath the passage of thousands of feet and wheels.
Yet...
It wasn't desolate.
People filled the streets.
Children moved between buildings without appearing concerned about suddenly starving.
Open workshops produced constant metallic impacts.
Containers of food and actual water stood openly beside stalls without anyone guarding every one of them.
And then there were the buildings themselves.
Some were made from metal, as expected.
Others...
Weren't.
One had walls assembled from what looked like stone.
Actual stone.
Blocks of gray stone.
Another incorporated long brown boards that could only have been wood, though I couldn't be completely certain.
Others used smooth, pale materials, translucent sheets, hardened substances resembling shells, or mixtures of materials I couldn't immediately identify.
When I reached the main square by following the traffic, it proved even more excessive.
Poles had been installed throughout it, each topped by a softly glowing material that illuminated the surrounding stalls.
Actual stable sources of radiance that required no visible person to continuously maintain them.
Beneath them, the stalls displayed objects of every shape and color.
After removing my helmet to breathe in the air required for me to speak, I immediately began inquiring about them.
"Fruits" covered in blue spirals.
Bundles of crimson "leaves."
Containers filled with moving silver liquid.
Books bound in materials that weren't metal.
Clothing made from countless fabrics.
Weapons fashioned from stone, bone, crystal, wood, and metals displaying colors I had never seen.
And, of course... food.
Not paste, but prepared foods that released smells so novel and complex that my [Awareness] struggled to separate their components.
I promised myself to look further into them once I had the opportunity to.
As for the people...
I sighted several fairies moving freely through the crowd.
One wearing fine not-metal-thread fabric clothing was arguing with a giant over the price of something many times larger than she was.
Another sat upon the shoulder of a scaled giant, exchanging words I had difficulty understanding or following.
A third flew between the upper floors of nearby buildings while carrying messages.
Beyond them were species I had only ever encountered in illustrated books.
Short and broad beings with dense musculature and elaborate facial hair.
Tall beings covered in pale fur, with claws that reflected a sharp gleam beneath the surrounding pole lights.
Actual three-meter-tall, four-armed giants.
Creatures whose lower bodies ended in masses of segmented limbs.
Others I recognized from the illustration book on species that naturally formed Origin Aspects.
Even a translucent being whose internal organs were visible through its skin.
There was, reasonably, only one explanation capable of accounting for such variety.
I approached an older-looking giant overseeing a stall filled with polished stones.
Before I even needed to ask whether I had reached the Everwell Sector, I heard snippets of conversation referring to this settlement as part of the western border of the Everwell Sector.
I had made it.
How long had the journey taken?
No idea.
Keeping track of time had become progressively less reliable once my exhaustion resistance [Cultivation] allowed me to remain awake for increasingly inconsistent periods.
Ultimately, it didn't matter.
My journey had taken me to its intended destination.
Now, I only needed to find a Temple belonging to the Everwell branch of the Faith Of The Aspects that was capable of receiving Magister Eliott's letter.
So I asked for directions.
Eventually, after learning dozens of settlement names and landmarks, I was simply pointed toward the largest road leaving the settlement and told to follow it until I reached Ophir.
After mulling over the directions for some time, I left the settlement and resumed my flight, my new destination set as Ophir.
The road proved easy to follow.
Far easier than any of Stavros' annotations.
It extended through the rust wastes as an almost continuous constructed path, crossing collapsed sections through bridges and cutting through ruins where clearing them had evidently been deemed more troublesome.
Settlements appeared regularly along it.
At first, they resembled the one I had visited.
Crowded.
Built from a mixture of scavenged metal and rarer-looking materials.
Then the proportions shifted.
Stone became common.
Wood stopped being restricted to ornaments.
Some buildings used almost no metal at all.
The roads improved as well.
Loose rust gave way to compacted surfaces reinforced by fitted slabs of stone.
Then those slabs became uniform, and individual buildings where travelers could rest began appearing beside them.
Traffic grew denser.
Caravans became larger.
Some were pulled by actual creatures.
Others moved through mechanisms I could not understand.
I even witnessed a metallic platform carrying dozens of people while sliding above the road without touching it.
Every settlement added more materials.
More species.
More methods.
More novel applications of Aspects I had never read about.
I asked for directions whenever the road branched too extensively for me to confidently infer the correct path despite the presence of signs.
Each answer confirmed that Ophir remained ahead.
Then, after what felt like several more weeks, towers appeared on the horizon.
Not broken remnants of ancient architecture.
Constructed towers.
Maintained ones.
They rose higher as I approached, eventually reaching so far upward that some appeared to merge with the ceiling of the Strata above.
The road widened into several separate lanes.
Traffic multiplied until dozens of other flying travelers remained within my [Awareness] at all times.
Buildings spread outward in every direction.
Structures of stone.
Wood.
Metal.
Crystal.
Glass.
Countless unfamiliar materials layered and combined according to purposes I could only guess at.
I followed the flow of travelers inward.
The main streets were lined with regularly spaced poles, each topped by a glowing material that cast steady light over the roads below.
Bridges crossed over other bridges.
Entire roads passed through buildings, beneath them, or above them.
Before long, without needing to search for long, I found myself following signs toward the "Faith Of The Aspects Main Temple."
Luckily, I had learned of the Temple classification system before departing Red Sand Rift City's Prime Temple, so the designation didn't confuse me.
First came the Prime Temples, which represented the highest authority of the Faith within a Sector.
After those came the Main Temples, which intervened when a Sector possessed more than one location of importance.
Only then came the Lower Temples, like those scattered throughout the various floors of Red Sand Rift City, serving as the primary interfaces between the Faith and the vast majority of the population living within those Sectors.
Beholding Ophir's Main Temple, though, it became clear that physical scale mattered far less to whether a Temple qualified as Lower, Main, or Prime than I had previously believed.
Because if Red Sand Rift City's Prime Temple were judged solely by its physical scale, it would, at best, have only qualified as a Lower Temple compared to the one before me.
Broad stairways ascended toward a central complex surrounded by dozens of towers reaching up to the ceiling.
Tall pillars made from pale stone and dark metal rose everywhere.
Open platforms on every level overlooked the streets below.
Geometric depictions of countless Aspects had been carved across every wall, their patterns continuing from one tower into the next.
Sure, there remained a certain restraint to it.
There were no uselessly ornate ornaments, excessive displays of wealth, or decorations without apparent symbolic purpose...
But compared to the near-total minimalism of Red Sand Rift City's Prime Temple...
The two architectural styles may as well have belonged to different organizations.
Not wanting me to appear too wild, [Guided] prompted me to remove my helmet before heading toward the base of the central stairway leading to what appeared to be the entrance level.
I then began slowly flying alongside it.
Avoiding the dense traffic as people moved up and down the stairway, I swiftly reached the first level, where I finally took in an intimately familiar sight.
Seekers in white robes carrying stacks of documents.
Sentinels wearing armor of a familiar design, yet made from materials I couldn't identify, standing guard.
Nobody stopped me until I passed through the grand entrance, where a fairy wearing a Seeker Scribe robe stepped into my path.
Without exchanging any words, I reached into my backpack and retrieved Magister Eliott's letter of recommendation.
"I was instructed to present this to the Faith Of The Aspects branch upon reaching the Everwell Sector," I said. "I also require detailed information regarding how I should proceed from here."
The fairy accepted my letter, then looked me up and down before saying, "Wait here."
He flew off, shortly vanishing through a side entrance.
I remained where I was and observed the constant movement passing through the Temple, finding its sheer scale of activity difficult to reconcile with the Prime Temple I knew.
A few minutes later, he returned without the letter.
"A Seeker Archivist will receive you."
He then gave me a sequence of directions involving five corridors, a stairway, an inner courtyard, and a section identified by a symbol resembling an open book surrounded by three concentric circles and two numbers.
I repeated them back to confirm I had heard them correctly, then set off through the first corridor he had pointed me toward.
The inside of the Temple proved no less extensive than its exterior.
Corridors branched in every direction.
Signs designated branches, ranks, residential areas, archives, document repositories, Seeker sanctuaries, Sentinel training areas, meditation chambers, and administrative sections.
Fortunately, the directions were precise.
I crossed all five corridors.
Turned at the designated pillar.
Ascended the stairway.
Passed through an inner courtyard filled with strange flora growing from what looked like actual soil rather than brown rust powder.
Then I followed the symbol of the open book until I reached the specified door, marked by the two numbers, midway down a corridor.
I stopped before it.
Raised my hand.
And knocked.