Atop a flat rock in Winderfield’s Central Park, Yuriko sat in a meditative pose. Her stay in Protectorate HQ lasted all of thirty minutes, most of it spent waiting. Her welcome had been colder than she expected for all the three heroes said. Though, perhaps, it was because of how busy the place was. Or maybe because something happened that necessitated a hurried response.

Either way, the receptionist gave her a thick bundle of papers. Only a few—three—pages that she needed to fill up with information, the rest were contract terms and conditions. Reading through all fifty pages was a pain, and she had to stop in the middle just to recover from the burgeoning migraine. At the end of it though, she was more than annoyed. The contract was severely restrictive, giving all power to the Protectorate in exchange for a measly sum of Torries. And the promise and offer of protection from harassment and discrimination from normal humans.

The term they used to describe the unpowered and the Altered stuck out. It made her realise that the people of Astoria were normal mortals, those who weren’t hiding their Altered state anyway. She shouldn’t have been surprised considering that Bresia, the Confederation back home, and the other places she’d been to had far more mortals than awakened. It highlighted how unusual the Empire was compared to every other nation. Back home, no one was completely mortal. Many may languish at the Novice level, in fact, that was most of the people, but all can use Animus, and all could advance if they put in the appropriate amount of work.

That the Protectorate sought to shackle their stronger citizens and pander to the mortals at the Altered Human’s expense? It was unthinkable.

But clearly, that was what’s happening here.

Needless to say, she didn’t sign any contracts that would essentially be a slave contract. It probably lacked the power to enforce it other than using the law, but she wasn’t about to agree to something she didn’t intend to follow. Oathbreakers were despised for a reason, and from some of Damien’s knowledge, doing so disturbed the Anima. Sometimes it was harmless, but a grave enough offence could hinder Actualisation. If it could do that, then progressing above would be affected in one way or another.

Perhaps if Soundwave, Lightfoot, and Weavemaster had been around, as they had promised last night, they might have convinced her. Though it was far more likely that she wouldn’t have agreed anyway.

More importantly, she had entered the premises unmasked, so her identity was already revealed. Did it really matter to her? She couldn’t say. Hiding and keeping her head down seemed to be Lilibeth’s impulse, but that wasn’t Yuriko. The Radiant Sun’s light will pierce through all but the darkest of clouds, and even then, at some point in time, the light will return. As she steeped Radiance into her body, mind, and Anima, she felt it much harder to keep herself from standing out. She craved being seen, she craved being adored, and with her Mien, that impulse was doubly reinforced. Only because it made her stronger did it become bearable.

Even if she didn’t make Radiance the centre of her incarnation body, even if she didn’t recreate her Ennoia and Colligia, she still had her Radiant Physique. She thought about developing a Swordlight Physique, but thanks to Damien, she knew it would be much worse than what she had. It would probably make her faster, sharper, and stronger, but that was only relative to a mortal base. Radiance did all that and more. There was no reason to invest otherwise. Sure, Radiance affected her mindset, but using Swordlight to refine her physique would probably make her more prone to using the sword to solve her problems. After all, if she had a hammer, then everything looked like a nail.

Yuriko toyed with the idea of mixing Physiques in one body but quickly discarded it. It would only introduce weaknesses, even if she could optimise the refinement. Besides, she’d rather keep Radiance, since it supplied her with practically unlimited energy.

Even in her incarnation body, which had only a third of it refined, it was enough to use Radiant to Animus conversion easily. As she meditated, she wove Animus storage runescript lines along her Anima, converted Radiant motes to lumens, and began the Swordlight forging process. It took ten minutes to succeed, and she wove the strand into the existing seed. It wasn’t enough to simply layer it over the older strand since it made it harder to use. She had to unravel the current strand and weave it into a longer and thicker strand. That process took a couple of hours, but once she was done, she had two Swordlight strands to use, either individually or at the same time. Her true body could only hold one Swordlight strand at a time, so this was an aspect her incarnation body was better at now.

Using the Swordlight effectively supercharged the Invisible Edge. It would still be transparent, but it could now strike at anything within her sight. And, as long as the Edge stayed within her perception aura, she could redirect it around. She could have it double back and circle around her before flying off again. It dissipated after a minute, and she suspected that whatever it hit would slowly degrade the Swordlight Edge. A powerful technique indeed. She hadn’t had the chance to try with the double strand yet.

Yuriko sighed as she eased back into a meditative trance. The only reason she got away with blasting out a Swordlight Edge was that it was invisible. She wasn’t sure if the Astorians were able to detect it though. Based on the movies and shows she browsed, they used technology to compensate for their lack of personal power.

Hmm, but what about those metal constructs that attacked her out of nowhere? Her perception showed her that they were machines, but they had parts that were opaque to her senses. She honestly didn’t know if current technology could support flying of that kind. The machines didn’t have any kind of rocket, flares, propellers, or whatnot. Instead, they floated in the air just like she did, without visible cause. Neither Chaos Sight nor Elemental Sight revealed anything, but she thought she felt something ripple through her…finer senses.

What was it, though?

She had a hunch, a sudden flash of insight. But unfortunately, there were no Altered around her to test her hypothesis. She thought that they might have channelled their abilities and techniques through one of the underlying layers of reality, specifically, the Realm of Thought. Or maybe Desire. Or perhaps the truth was that it varied from person to person, from Altered ability to another.

Ah, speaking of the underlying layers, she felt a sudden urge to cast True Connection to talk to Mum. Finding out Lilibeth’s parents barely cared for the girl had been annoying. Bitter. The remnants of Lilibeth pulsed with the thought. If the first thing they said to her after nearly two years of separation was how ungrateful she was…yeah, they weren’t worth getting to know or reconnecting with.

So much for Lilibeth’s dreams. How would she win their acclaim when, even after seeing what she looked like now, they barely acknowledged her?

It was ridiculous, but…Lilibeth’s heart was still set on it. She could feel it pulling at her mind. Not quite a compulsion, but she did inherit this body, so she still needed to try her best to resolve the woman’s last wishes.

In her true body, Yuriko settled into her seated meditation pose and brought herself into the dreamscape. The myriad threads and the green film that covered her in a shell irked her. It concealed the mists and made sensing the proper threads a bit harder.

Not that she could mistake her family’s threads.

She looked at the broken one, Kato’s. She had thought him dead when it snapped, but the fact that it was still there, quietly burning with daemonfyre at the edges, hopefully, meant that he was only trapped in wherever in the Abyss daemons came from.

It was a pity she couldn’t track daemonfyre from the dream. Yuriko sighed. The green film was getting thicker. It was slow, by a tiny fraction of an inch every time she visited the dream. Granted, it wasn’t more than once or twice a week, whenever she remembered. Coming here didn’t really serve any purpose anyway.

A thought occurred to her. Her incarnation body was just working on the Invisible Edge manipulation to little effect. Both bodies had been to the dream, though not at the same time. What would happen if she brought both bodies to the dream? Or rather, both minds?

But it was her Anima that travelled here, right? Not her body. Her Anima was split so both should be able to come, but where would they arrive? Did distance, and perhaps planar boundaries matter?

Her incarnation pushed herself to enter the dream, both of them, eyes closed, and when she opened, she saw…herself.

A tiny version of her seated across, knees barely touching. A larger her, looming above, imperious blue eyes curious.

That answered that, huh? What would be the point, though? Having incarnation and true body in the same dreamscape? She knew that if she ever brought her bodies together, even just touching Animas, they would merge back into a singular true body. What would happen with the diverse skills and cores though? Would it combine? Add to each other? Or would the lesser be discarded?

Her true body had recovered her strength from before the split, so there was little reason to combine. And more to the point, she didn’t know how to return to Dragon Fall City, or reach Astoria. Unless her true body found another gate? But then, how to get back? She would be stranded in Astoria…

Shaking her head, Yuriko’s true body remained in her seated meditation pose while her incarnation body floated in the mist. Instinctively, she reached towards the green film to swipe it away, despite knowing that it would remain out of reach.

Much to her surprise, the film didn’t evade her incarnation projection. Her hand sank into the film. It felt oily and clung to her fingers. Gooey, and stretchy. Ick? No, not quite. It detached from her hand when she Willed it away. But the film still got in the way and obscured her view. She pulled and tore at the green film, trying to clear it away. But when she flicked the droplets from her finger, the greenish fluid floated back into the barrier.

So she scooped up a bit and brought it to her true body’s projection. Then, she held the droplets in her hand, squishing them together when more droplets than she could easily hold reached her. She pulled, passed it on, and squished the film into an orb. She used her Anima to contain, and while all that happened, she wondered what she’d do with the stuff. The mists floated back into her surroundings, and she breathed a sigh of relief. The film almost felt like scum clogging up a waterway. Now that she broke the surface tension, the river flowed clear.

Rip. Toss. Squish.

Again and again, until more than half of the shell around her was gone. The orb burbled between her hands, as she absently compressed it. Smaller and smaller. Denser and denser. Until…

Pop!

The orb, which was about the size of an apple, ruptured and imploded. Her hands clapped together, and she felt a hard kernel between her palms. When she opened her hands, there was a single droplet, green with shimmering lights, on her palm. It detached and floated above it even as she stared incredulously.

She recognised it, of course.

Ambrosia.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep