We leave the Low Tide Grove when the light over the Academy has already started to change.
The way back feels shorter without Rank C monsters crashing through trees toward us. Even so, neither of us is exactly presentable. The brackish water has dried into the clothes, leaving dark stains; my boots carry mud past the ankles; and Freya still has leaves caught in her hair despite pulling several out during the walk.
She holds Veilfang by the closed blade against her forearm, studying the dagger every so often. The metal reacts to the passage through the grove, taking on tones of bark, moss, and blue as the position of her hand changes.
It takes her a while to ask.
"I still don’t get why you gave me this."
"Because with me it would end up sold."
Freya looks at the dagger, then at Kraken strapped to my back.
"You just got an extremely rare Rank C relic and your first idea is to sell it?"
"I have two swords that suit me better, and I need money for more important things. Between turning this into Scales and putting the weapon where it’ll be useful, I’ll take the second option."
She turns Veilfang once in her hand. The motion comes out careful, unfamiliar. Freya knows how to handle weapons, but the dagger’s short length fights years of habit with a scythe that reaches half a room.
"You still haven’t explained where the usefulness is. I fight with Permafrost. If someone gets close enough for this dagger to beat my scythe, something’s already gone wrong."
"Today, yes."
Freya slows her pace.
I keep my eyes on the trail.
"Don’t sell that weapon. It’s a relic, not a hunting bonus to pay for dinner. When you reach Rank B, you’ll understand why I’m telling you this."
She doesn’t ask right away.
It’s the absence of the question that makes me look at her.
Freya has understood where the information came from. Her face closes a little, without the defensive reaction that showed up every time the subject came up since I told the truth in that room. She just stores Veilfang in her inventory and keeps walking.
The future has become a strange point between us. Before, she wanted to take apart every sentence, find the seam, prove there was a more acceptable explanation. After the Magnatos, the Reef Stalker, and the Academy records she could check whenever she wanted, that certainty no longer seems so firm. She still doesn’t believe me, but some explanations are starting to take effort.
I prefer it this way.
I don’t need her to believe me this afternoon.
I need her to keep choosing on her own.
We take the internal tram at the platform near the fields. The car moves slowly between the Academy buildings, its open sides catching the cool late-afternoon air. Freya sits across from me and spends most of the ride looking at the training grounds we pass. Now and then her eyes drop to my left arm.
I’m still testing the limb too, without noticing.
I close the hand, turn the wrist, flex the fingers. No pain. No loss of strength. The evolution to Rank C rebuilt what the Stalker had ruined, and the amplified blessing of Chaos Theory finished a job that would normally need a healer.
My body feels new.
My head, not so much.
When we get off near the central sector, we walk together to the plaza where our routes split. Freya has to head for the east-wing dorms. My dormitory is in the opposite direction.
"Get some rest," I say. "You spent a lot of OXI on Pegasus Wrath."
"So did you."
"I have five thousand now. I plan to be insufferable about it for at least two days."
Her mouth almost forms a smile, but Freya holds the reaction and only adjusts the strap of her bag.
"See you tomorrow, Dryden."
"See you tomorrow."
We head off in different directions.
I’ve already crossed most of the plaza when I hear my name.
"Dryden."
I stop and look back.
Freya is still near the point where we split. People cross the plaza between us, forcing our eyes to find each other again between one group and the next. She looks like she thought better of something and couldn’t find a comfortable stance to say it.
Then she smiles.
A small smile, without any irony.
"Thank you..."
I stand looking at her for a moment.
It isn’t only about the dagger. Maybe part of it is, but we both know that word carries the rest of the afternoon with it. The arm I put between her and the Stalker. The hunt. The way I trusted her on the final strike after she’d hesitated on the first attack.
That thanks lands somewhere good.
More than I expected it to.
I smile back, but I don’t answer with a "you’re welcome." There’s something I need to make clear before she goes.
"I haven’t forgotten the promise I made you, Freya. I’m going to keep it, no matter what you do or what you think of me."
Her smile fades slowly, replaced by something more serious. Freya just nods. There’s no need to bring up the debt, her mother, or Dean in the middle of that plaza. It was all said in that room.
She heads east.
I keep on toward the dormitory.
When I go in, the late afternoon is already tinting the light through the window a dark blue. I set Kraken against the bed, take off the Horizon, and stand a few seconds in front of the glass, working the left shoulder again. The skin doesn’t carry even a visible mark from the attack.
There are still things about the evolution I need to understand, but one of them has been bothering me since the grove.
A notification appeared along with the Rank increase. I pushed it to the back of the HUD while I was still with Freya.
Now I can look at it in peace.
I open my profile and scroll down to the class section.
[LEGACY] Aion Codex (Seal 1/7 Unlocked)
[CLASS SKILLS]
Memory of Lightwaves (Active/Passive)
Trace (Passive): Allows the user to see "Echoes" of recent events or paths left by the deceased.
Rescue (Active): Extract the fading memory and remaining Essence from an Echo’s Fragments.
Link (Passive): Detects and recognizes the true soul of an item, revealing hidden statuses. Requires assimilation.
Consume (Unlocked): Rank D (Coral). By consuming an Echo Fragment, you do not extract its memories and essence—you acquire its experience and may be offered a contract.
My eyes drop one more line.
The text that for months read Locked had changed.
Overmemory (Unlocked): Rank C (Reef).
I tap the skill.
The window opens with no special animation.
[OVERMEMORY]
[Type: Active]
[Consume a Memory to activate Drifter Mode.]
I wait.
Nothing appears below.
I open the detailed description. The same text fills the window.
[Consume a Memory to activate Drifter Mode.]
The part that should interest me is Drifter Mode.
It doesn’t.
Consume a Memory.
My class has always treated memories as something concrete. Memory of Lightwaves lets me access them. Rescue extracts what still remains inside an Echo Fragment. Consume does something else: it uses the whole fragment and can form contracts with what stays inside it.
Ocean’s Law knows how to tell all those terms apart.
If it wanted to say Echo Fragment, it would say Echo Fragment.
I sit on the edge of the bed.
The room goes quiet while I try to decide how far it’s worth carrying a hypothesis with no real information. The first possibility is simple: maybe Overmemory consumes a memory stored inside some fragment, choosing a specific experience to feed this Drifter Mode.
The second is worse.
Maybe the memory has to be mine.
I think of my mother’s kitchen in District 4. Of Lili’s voice. Of the first time I held my sister, back when she still fit in my arms. Lola complaining about the food in Lost Ark. Oliver laughing after nearly dying. Rhayne holding my shirt without saying anything.
If I chose one of those memories, what would consuming mean?
Spending the energy held in it?
Keeping Memory of Lightwaves from accessing it again?
Or erasing it from my head?
The system doesn’t help.
I go back to the next phrase.
Drifter Mode.
Duvilin comes to mind almost at once. The true form he takes when he answers the call, wrapped in the white ancestral fire, with a structure that looks like no modern Diver. The symbol on his back has already answered an important question, too.
Aionfrost Drifter.
Maybe that’s a version of Drifter Mode. Maybe Overmemory lets me reproduce some ancestral form of the class for a while. Maybe it has no connection at all and I’m trying to fit two pieces together only because they have the same word written on them.
The problem is the price.
The chance of forgetting something in exchange for power is already enough to kill any desire to test the skill out of curiosity.
I’ve already lost enough people.
I don’t need to start losing the memories of them too. Those memories are what keep them alive, even if only inside me.
I close the Overmemory description and go back to the list.
That’s when I notice the window still runs below the point where it used to end.
Two new lines have appeared.
[RESTRICTED EVOLUTION]
[Rank B Class Skill — Locked]
[Identification Restricted.]
[Rank A Class Skill — Locked]
[Identification Restricted.]
I frown and select the first.
[Insufficient Information.]
It doesn’t say insufficient Rank. It doesn’t mention requirements. Just information.
I try again and get the same answer.
A restricted evolution could mean an evolution of the class, of the Codex, of Drifter Mode itself, or something Ocean’s Law still won’t let me understand. The Rank B and A skills are equally useless. They don’t even show names.
I spend a while staring at the panel, looking for a difference hidden in the structure of the words.
I don’t find one.
Staring longer won’t make the system explain.
I close the interface.
There are far more mundane problems waiting outside my SSS class, and one of them is producing potions slower than I need.
I open the Guild Report Forum and look for Richard.
[Richard Boulevard — LDP Factory Manager]
I start a private conversation.
Dryden: Richard, I need a number before I talk to someone. Counting firm orders and serious inquiries, how many LDPs are being requested for the next thirty days?
The answer takes a moment. I picture Richard in some corner of the factory digging through reports while Zoe chases him with papers.
When it comes back, the message is longer.
Richard: Adding up orders already logged, advanced negotiations, and distributors who asked to reserve production, we’re past 100,000 units. I’m still consolidating everything because some groups are repeating orders through different channels. The real number is probably higher.
A hundred thousand.
I’d expected growth after the Oathring. Not on that scale.
I write again.
Dryden: With the current setup, how much of that can you deliver without compromising quality?
Richard takes less time this round.
Richard: Not even ten percent. If I get aggressive with shifts and stock, I can come close for a short stretch, but not sustain it. Today our problem isn’t selling. It’s glass, Lunaria, equipment, production space, and trained people. If I accept everything coming in, I’ll be selling deadlines I can’t meet.
The answer is exactly what I need.
Richard goes on before I can close the conversation.
Richard: If you’re thinking about scaling up production, I need to know before I promise any expansion. The demand already justifies a much bigger factory, but the current structure is near its limit.
Dryden: Don’t promise anything yet. Keep logging the orders and turning down whatever puts production at risk. I just needed to confirm the size of the problem.
The word problem almost makes me smile.
A hundred thousand units ordered in a month and an inability to supply even ten percent isn’t the kind of problem I mean to solve by lowering expectations.
It’s leverage.
Safe Harbor is already past the stage where I have to prove someone would buy an LDP. I have buyers, distributors, repeat consumption, and a manager telling me the factory can’t keep up with even a fraction of what’s arriving.
What’s missing is capacity.
Capacity costs Scales, infrastructure, professionals, and influence. I could spend months building each of those things separately, or put the demand in front of someone who already has part of the structure and needs something I have.
I look out the window.
The late-afternoon light is almost gone. The Academy’s first runic lamps are beginning to come on between the buildings, forming bright paths along the stone passages.
Dean will still be in the library.
I stand, wash my face, and change out of the field-dirty clothes. I don’t put the Horizon back on. Inside the Academy, showing up armed to the teeth for a talk with the rector would send exactly the wrong message. Beyond that, it wouldn’t make a difference against him.
On the way to the library, I sort the numbers in my head. A hundred thousand units of potential demand. Less than ten thousand of safe capacity. A product Dean probably knows about, a working factory, and a promise made to Freya that I don’t intend to turn into charity.
I don’t know whether he’ll accept my proposal.
I don’t need him to like it either.
I need him to see value in the deal and listen to the rest.
The library is quieter at that hour. I pass the ground-floor tables, climb the floors, and keep going to the upper area, where the flow of students thins with every flight of stairs. Dean’s private observatory sits past an almost empty corridor, cut off from the rest by heavy old doors.
The last time I entered that space, I’d learned clearly what it meant to be alone with a Rank A who chose to control the conversation by force. Coming back there by my own choice should have caused some hesitation.
It didn’t.
I stop in front of the door, mentally arrange what I need to say, and knock twice. There’s a brief movement on the other side, followed by the sound of something being set on a table.
Then the rector’s controlled voice crosses the door.
"Come in."
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