by Sarah Lin
What followed was dead silence, and even though Mundhin were hard to read, Theo was pretty sure he knew exactly why its central sphere was motionlessly fixed on her. Fiyu shifted her stance and her fingers twitched, clearly wanting to play with her braid.
"Your... your head is also bad. It is the wr-"
The Mundhin let out a bellow and launched himself at her. This match was much more intense, since he could resist the majority of her bursts, but Fiyu outmatched him in speed. He nearly caught her while pretending not to be able to see past her stealth, but she anticipated his trap. In the end her dark blade proved able to cut through his limbs and she was victorious, though it was a close thing.
If tournaments followed laws of drama, Theo might have been worried about Fiyu's chances, but he knew the odds. In a single-elimination unseeded tournament, there was no guarantee that the two strongest fighters would end up against one another in the final round. As more unremarkable contestants fought, Theo strongly suspected that Fiyu had just defeated her closest competition.
By the time of the final match, Fiyu's cantae seemed to have recovered, but she looked more nervous than before. Her opponent was a Fithan man covered in scars who immediately raised his hands to either side of his face before she could speak.
"It's okay, you don't need to try to insult me. You're a talented soulcrafter, and you can simply show us your work."
After peering at him for a time, trying to discern an insult in his words, Fiyu smiled and nodded. "Thank you, I will do this."
Though the Fithan man might have been kind, he wasn't good enough to be competition for Fiyu. He had absolutely no counter to her stealth except instinct predicting her movements, and Fiyu was too smart to fall into simple patterns. When she defeated him, she seemed surprised by the loud cheering, then beamed as she realized that she had won the tournament.
It wasn't really a surprise, but Theo still found himself smiling.
~ ~ ~
The cheering would have been horrifying if not for the curtain within her soulhome, which Fiyu closed tightly even as she maintained her smile. It was important to behave normally, because she was representing herself, Ichil, and House Blacksilver. She knew that her insults had not been effective, though she wasn't certain why they were bad, but hoped her victory would be more important.
In the end, a Fithan stranger in elaborate clothing presented her with a sword, which baffled her. She had no idea how to use a sword, and if they had demanded that she do something with it, she might have been apprehensive. Yet it seemed to be sufficient to simply hold the weapon, based on the cheering, so she managed until she could retreat from the coliseum floor.
Though she only wanted to rejoin her companions, the way appeared to be blocked. Walking toward the group, Fiyu resisted the urge to touch the hair Companion Nauda had done for her, instead merely running her senses through the strands. She would be okay. Her companions were with her.
A number of people closed on her, apparently with offers, but a representative from House Blacksilver cut them off. Fiyu had hoped that it would be Ally Antha, mostly because she knew the other woman best. Still, the other officials were not bad, surrounding her at a reasonable distance while also keeping others away and escorting her through the press.
"You've done our House proud," an older man said. "We don't focus on such tournaments, so they're almost always won by soulcrafters from House Crimson or the House of Waves that are forced to stay at the first tier. But having one of ours win will remind them that they can't forget about us."
"I attempted to do well in every aspect." Fiyu had been holding the sword in both hands and now thrust it at him. "I do not know how to use this."
"It's still your reward, or at least the start of it. House Blacksilver is going to add something on top of it: five hundred merits. We hope you'll use them to continue your career to Archcrafter and beyond."
"Thank you." Fiyu did her best to smile at the Stranger Allies, but then she saw Friend Nauda and Friend Theo standing in the corridor ahead. She hurried to greet them, glad to see the smiles on their faces. "I have a sword now," she said. "I am not sure what to do with it."
"Didn't you used to fight with one of those?" Friend Nauda asked, glancing toward Friend Theo. Several muscles in his jaw clenched for a moment, then he shook his head.
"That was the old me, and this isn't about me at all. Congratulations, Fiyu."
She nodded her thanks. "I did not truly expect to win."
"That's humble of you, but you could have. You're remarkable for a soulcrafter anywhere, not just in this city. They think Stronghold is the limit here, but if you keep moving upward, you'll be able to go further."
Fiyu agreed, hoping that it could be alongside her companions. Not so long ago, she had been nearly dead, and now she was the winner of a competition and quite happy. She would hope that the next turn of fate was equally positive.
Chapter 34
Generally, when they soulcrafted together, Theo used Nauda's technique to check in on their progress. That day, he needed absolute focus, so he remained within his soulhome with the door closed, almost no awareness of the outside world. Senka was blessedly absent - he'd seen her perhaps once since they'd returned - and the other two provided a degree of security so he could concentrate.
He did have some idea what they were doing. Nauda was continuing to improve a chamber dedicated to her staff, as well as trying to enhance her nullstone. Fiyu was polishing yet more details as well as working on the roof to prepare for Archcrafter, if not trying to ascend. But he set both aside, because it was time.
Theo stood in the center of his soulhome, staring up at the singularity spinning above him. It was an unusually powerful core for his tier, and just using the techniques he'd developed in his corner chambers would be enough to make him above average. He didn't need to be above average, he needed to be exceptional, so it was time to bring his entire blueprint together.
With a deep breath, he began drawing every chamber of his soulhome together, a single complex flow that he'd never have been able to do in his first life. Average techniques drew on two chambers: a core source of cantae and a chamber to apply it. Strong techniques would add cantae from above or below, maybe even support rooms, using three or four chambers at once.
His singularity was going to draw eight into his central column.
They all flowed together relatively easily, which he'd expected since he'd been carefully selecting his sublime materials for a single purpose from the beginning. When he faltered briefly, it wasn't because of his soulcrafting, just a final mental barrier: his soulhome was unified, but he was still split between his first life, his life on Earth, and a thousand mirrored versions of who he could be now. One day he'd need to resolve that conflict, but for that moment he accepted it and pulled the technique together anyway.
The other eight chambers shivered as their cantae bled out into the voids being created as he drew everything into his core. Overhead, the shutters above his singularity slammed open and everything flooded upward, leaving his soulhome in a torrent.
In the real world, Theo raised his hands facing each other, expecting a useful failure... and a seed of darkness appeared between them. He'd honestly been expecting multiple attempts to refine the technique, and now he saw the singularity floating between his hands, drawing air and cantae into it.
Startled, Theo lost focus and the singularity dissipated. He found himself smiling in satisfaction, glad to have validated his new blueprint. After so long focusing toward this technique and bending everything he had toward it, the final step came together smoothly. Of course, nothing that powerful could be used easily, but now that the soulcrafting theory was confirmed sound, the rest was just a matter of training.
"I'd like to show you something." Theo spoke softly, expecting to need to get their attention and let them finish their work. Instead, he found both Nauda and Fiyu already staring at him from their positions.
"You've finally finis
hed soulcrafting?" Nauda asked. Theo grinned as he got to his feet.
"Never. But my soulhome has advanced far enough to support a singularity."
Fiyu rose to her feet, smiling encouragingly. "What I felt was very strange. I believe I have understood your explanations, but they remain unfamiliar to me."
"It's a bit of a difficult concept, especially trying to recreate it by soulcrafting." Theo knew that what he'd created was several steps removed from a true singularity, but some of those were necessitated by the nature of cantae and others would hopefully make it easier to actually control. "I need the two of you to help me test it, because it's going to be difficult to use in actual combat, at least for now."
He felt Nauda examining his soulhome and let her. Several seconds later, she nodded to herself. "I see what you mean about your soulhome needing a third floor to create a full sphere. Until then, I'm guessing it's going to be a bit slower?"
"Hopefully not too slow to use. I need to improve that and test its limits."
Theo concentrated, this time accessing the technique without returning to his soulhome. What he was attempting to create was a relatively small singularity, but even that consumed his cantae at a terrible rate. Creating one at full power would be a challenge and he doubted that he could manage more than two, even under ideal conditions. Until he ascended further, this would be a final technique.
Manifesting another small singularity, however, was easy enough, and this time he held it stably between his hands. The others peered at the dark speck, noting how everything flowed inward. Though Nauda seemed merely interested, Fiyu shivered and took a step back.
"It is... I have never felt anything like this. My senses don't know how to react. It is impossibly dense, like a pit that descends so deep that I cannot see the bottom..."
"Infinitely deep, if I got it right." Theo had been wondering what she would see, but if it felt infinitely dense to her, then that was a good sign he'd pulled it off. Meanwhile, Nauda started to raise her staff to poke it, so he had to stop her. "I wouldn't test with anything you value. Do we have something else?"
"I think so." Nauda ran to the side and grabbed a board that young trainees used to practice simple physical techniques. "I'll just pass it through, I guess."
He separated his hands further to give her space and Nauda swung the board against the singularity with more cantae than he'd expected. It passed through cleanly and she brought up the board, staring at the hole that had been torn in it. When Nauda poked it against the singularity directly, the board was immediately torn apart by the event horizon, consumed without the singularity becoming even slightly unstable.
That was good, but Theo searched futilely for time dilation. There might not be any visible, given the size of the singularity. For that matter, there wasn't much of an accretion disc, just the darkness of the event horizon, and he'd need to do further testing to find out whether or not his technique needed refinement. What mattered most was that it wasn't draining him to maintain the singularity, not with it sucking in everything around it.
"Could it pass through anything?" Fiyu asked, eyes wide even through her mask.
"Not yet, unfortunately," Theo said. "The black hole is ultimately made from cantae, and the gap to Authority is too large. Once I ascend that far, it might be able to threaten anyone, but that's in the future." He relaxed his sober analysis and allowed himself to grin. "But this would definitely pierce straight through a Ruler, no matter their cantae."
"And so you have your strategy for the duel." Nauda tapped her staff on the ground as she watched the singularity thoughtfully. "So you're going to fire the sphere at a vulnerable target?"
"Actually, probably not. Even this small version is proving difficult to move." Theo could shift the black hole slightly by moving his hands, but it required focus and drained his cantae. His fingers curled in, forming somewhat of a cage around it, and if he moved them too far away, the technique threatened to become unstable.
With assistance from the others, Theo ran a few more experiments. Anything manifested by his own cantae wouldn't hurt him, so he could touch it harmlessly, but Fiyu and Nauda felt it drain their cantae if they got too close. Cantae bolts fired against it were absorbed instantly, actually strengthening the black hole. A constant stream of cantae attacks couldn't overwhelm it, unlike many techniques based on absorption. He was reasonably confident that anything short of a developed technique by an Authority would only feed into the technique, but it had another limitation.
"Fiyu, I need you to hit me with a light burst." Theo walked several paces away, pulling the black hole along with him. It seemed to grow spiritually heavier the longer it existed, so he was doubly glad for his wormhole chamber. "I need to know its full range."
"I will try to be gentle." Fiyu removed a pair of silver bracers he hadn't noticed before and stepped into place across from him, palms raised. He let more of his cantae flow into it, increasing the darkness to roughly the size of a fist.
Her first burst of light was much too modest, a stream aimed directly at the black hole. Not only were those that struck it absorbed, others curved inward, drawn in by the spiritual gravity. Nauda whistled, but Fiyu focused and widened her arms a little, preparing a broader assault.
Though a large portion of her blast fell into the event horizon, it didn't extend far enough to protect his full body, and some bolts were actually bent inward in his direction. Theo fell backward as the bolts burned against his cantae and his focus collapsed... but the singularity endured for a while longer, growing larger and soaking up cantae in midair before finally disappearing.
"So it's not unstoppable." Nauda stepped over to offer him a hand up and pulled him back to his feet. "You said you would create a large one - would that protect you?"
"This is a secondary effect. It's not a defensive technique." Even though Theo was starting to feel drained of cantae, he thought he could manage at least one more miniature singularity. "Let me show you the last aspect."
He repeated the technique, which came a little faster this time. Something this potent would never become instantaneous, but he could reduce the time it took to generate with practice. Most importantly, he finally planned to use his wormhole chamber. It had been simply feeding gravitational cantae into his core from the beginning... but now it was going to do something more.
Once he had another singularity between his hands, Theo took a deep breath and focused... and then clapped his hands together around it, fingers interlocked.
A grinding explosion sounded to their left and they jumped in surprise, even Theo. He'd intended to tunnel the singularity to a point in the air above them. Instead, it whirled in the middle of one of the roofs surrounding the training courtyard. It had been built from sublime materials, but those were rapidly falling into the event horizon. As the intensity of the technique increased, more pieces of the roof began to tear free, rapidly orbiting around the black hole, which grew, and grew...
Theo quickly released the technique before it could deal serious damage to the Blacksilver complex. Some accidents during training were to be expected, so hopefully they wouldn't deduct any merits.
Abruptly he realized that he was still thinking like his life depended on merits. Now that he'd finally created his singularity, he no longer desperately needed every scrap he could find. Of course, that was no reason not to continue optimizing, since he still needed more edges for his duel against Esaire. Yet he felt that the first chapter of his new life had finally come to a close.
"Well done, Theo." Fiyu smiled at him and brought her hands together. "It is an extraordinary technique. I hope it will allow you to survive the duel."
"You don't have too many of those in your soulhome, do you?" Nauda regarded him thoughtfully, then shook her head. "Well, you know what you're doing. Can we help you get it ready for the fight?"
"Generating it now is one thing, but in a fight is another," Theo said. "I'll need you to seriously threaten me so I can get used to creatin
g it under pressure. But for right now... right now, I think I need a nap."
His soulhome exhausted, Theo laid back on the hard marble of the courtyard and was asleep almost instantly.
Chapter 35
Though Theo was incredibly busy, he couldn't possibly fail to notice the upcoming date when he had only one month left before the duel. He wasn't sure if the past five months felt like far more or far less time. In any case, he couldn't afford to let himself get distracted by the impending deadline.
Training with Nauda and Fiyu had been mostly successful, getting him used to manifesting his singularity even when being threatened. Unfortunately, he couldn't improve endlessly with just brute effort, and the technique was definitely going to require strategy to employ effectively. Fighting the two of them together, he only managed to gather enough cantae half of the time, and with their awareness of the technique, they might have been able to dodge even if he aimed for them. Certain steps would be too slow until he ascended and he'd have to work around that.
Perhaps the biggest problem was that the two of them combined weren't the same sort of threat as Esaire, who would be coming at him with focused speed and a Ruler's cantae. Theo didn't know anyone who was the same sort of soulcrafter, and didn't want to over-train against a single expected opponent anyway. That was a good way to develop rigid thinking instead of actual skills.
Still, he had another trial to pit himself against: one more quarry run with House Teal. This would be the last one he could attend before the duel, so he intended to make the most of it. Hopefully Nauda and Fiyu could sneak in, then he'd see if he could manage a singularity even in the whirlwind with attacks from all sides.
"Is something different about this time?" Theo had been distracted by overall plans while they drove out to the quarry, but Nauda leaned forward, shielding her eyes. "You notice anything, Fiyu?"
