It took a couple of days to secure an appointment with the ambassador of Tiath City. In the meantime, Yuriko spent most of her days training and meditating. Her Anima expansion had reached twenty-five inches from her skin and she was more than halfway to having it expand to a pace away.

Damien had been close-mouthed with what was needed to advance to Knight, and neither the Academies nor her Da had told her what it entailed either. Admittedly, she had been too young back then and it would likely be years before she even came close. But with the way she was strengthening herself, she was reasonably sure she’d advance by the time she turned fifteen years old.

If her progress remained strong. That was a rather big if. Her Anima had a reach of twenty-two inches nearly four weeks ago, but she only increased it by three inches this time. The ambient Chaos was also less dense in Bella. Add to the fact that it took more and more distilled Chaos for every inch of expansion. It meant every inch would take longer and took more resources.

She just needed two things to continue the growth of her Anima strength. One was distilled Chaos. The second was the ability to strain her Anima. That was getting harder by the day.

Right now, she resorted to using her expanded Anima to push her body off the ground while she was in a meditative pose. She needed to shift her around so that the cracks weren’t concentrated on her bottom. At one point, she did a handstand and projected her Anima to her palms, allowing her to levitate a couple of inches from the floor. It was a good workout.

As for the Radiant Body Reinforcement, well, she sunbathed in the nude for an hour in the morning. In the safety and seclusion of her room, of course. Investing the Radiant laden Animus to her heart still wasn’t complete, and she wasn’t sure how long that would take. Damien said to keep at it until no more could be contained. She did notice that the area around her heart that was reflected when she envisioned her Anima continued to grow brighter. The gleam had spread a bit more around her torso than just strictly her heart though, so maybe that was how it was meant to spread.

Since she’d long reached her training cap for Journeyman, most of her physical exercise was only to keep her body in condition. She still felt that she could continue training and improving if she did more, but Damien assured her that the gains would be incremental and her body would grow unbalanced. The very idea was somehow repugnant, so she refrained. She tested how much weight she could lift yesterday, and she was able to carry a thousand Jin heavy boulder with relative ease.

As for her sword dance training, that actually took precedence over physical conditioning. Now that she was in a relatively safe place, she activated her Facet just before she slept at night. The Golden Silhouette repeated the fourth dance every time and she also combined it with the other three often. Not at the same time though, just one at a time.

Since Yuriko had mastered combining the first three dances, the silhouette started her demonstrations with the combined form instead of demonstrating the three separately.

“Which means that if I combine the fourth seamlessly with the other three, my baseline increases,” Yuriko muttered. There probably was a way to do it, even if the fourth dance worked differently from the other three.

As she’d experienced, the fourth boosted the speed at which she could perform the other three dances. Using the fourth dance alone was a bit of a bother. It only increased her base speed and ate up too much Animus to keep active. Where the other three dances consumed something like a lumen every minute, the fourth ate up every ten seconds or so. When she paired it with the other dances, the consumption increased to the same as with the fourth dance alone, but the effects were much better.

Either way, she could activate the combined dances quickly, as fast as she could blink if she was in good condition, or as slow as a couple of heartbeats otherwise. A far cry from the several seconds it took when she first made use of the dances.

As long as she had the combined dance activated, it only took a thought to bring one dance to the forefront and another heartbeat to pair it with the fourth dance. She practised this shift extensively until she ate up about half of her Animus.

Afterwards, she tried to recall the Imperial Sword Styles taught to her by Da and Kale. In truth, she’d moved far from the Styles already and trying to go through the forms felt counterintuitive. The sword dances had more to do with what she intended, while the Styles were on specific movements and stances. Still, she persevered. The styles were the foundation, while the dances were the expression. As it were, Flowing Water Style was still her primary style, and she used a smattering of Sweeping Gale every now and then. As for the other style Kale used, he hadn’t actually taught it to her yet. Oh well.

The morning of the second day, she broke her fast in her rooms, as she usually did, right after her morning exercises and meditations. The servant who brought her food would normally wait outside of her sitting room while she ate, but halfway through breakfast, the man knocked and stuck his head past the door.

“Elder Yuriko, a letter arrived for you.”

“Oh, bring it in, please.”

He brought in a silver tray with a rolled-up sheet of vellum on top.

“Elder Yuriko of the Davar,

If it pleases you, you may call upon Her Excellency, Ambassador Rodina Waldemar of Tiath City, in her residence at the hour past noon, today on the 35th Day of Air, XR 4460.

Yours sincerely,

Sarah Jolanta

Undersecretary”

XR 4460? Wasn’t the year AF 2998? Hmm, ah, of course, they used a different calendar. She wasn’t quite sure which one though. The way to reckon the day of the year was easy. Just count how many days passed since the Celestial Refraction. The year always started on the First Day of Water after all. Now, to reckon the year differed depending on where one lived, Yuriko thought, and she didn’t know what the abbreviated XR meant.

‘I guess I’ll ask if it comes up.’

She had a few hours left and she spent most of it in meditation. She only took a light lunch and left the palace with the clothes that had been given to her. Today, her hakama was a light blue, while the dougi remained off-white. She wore white toed socks and sandals. She didn’t have any jewellery though she did tuck her weapons on her belt. That was the only piece that was contrary to local fashion, actually, her black leather belt.

The hakama was secured by laces on both sides and technically didn’t need a belt at all. The dougi was tucked into the hakama and she wrapped the belt around her waist. Only the fact that her hips had grown wider allowed it to stay there otherwise, they would have fallen to her feet, weighed down by the Plasma Lancet and her belt knife.

The locals actually wore a bandolier across the chest but she didn’t like it and left out the piece that was given to her. Oh, and she wore a purple and blue patterned scarf today. Sadly, she didn’t find a suitable beret during her foray into the merchants’ quarter.

After lunch, she headed out of the palace with Rhox in tow. The other woman seemed preoccupied. Even now, she carried a partially opened scroll and was reading from it while they walked. Well, their destination wasn’t that far, just a single platform away from the palace quarter.

The bridge connected to the lowest tier of the residential block. She took the branching pathway that led up. The path spiralled around the trunk twice, bringing her to the uppermost tier that was nearly thirty paces above the marsh. The ambassador’s residence was on a wide branch. The gate guard allowed her through after she presented her vellum scroll invitation.

Oh, the guards were human, both young men. They stared at her with mouths agape for an awkward moment. And the man who took the vellum scroll didn’t even open it and just waved her through.

Frowning to herself, she complied. The residence itself was built near the tip of the branch, on a wide platform that was nearly a hundred paces to a side. The house was built of wood, of course. Living wood, as she could see leaves and branches along the walls. It was as if the builders induced the great tree to grow into the shape of a house. For that matter, though the platforms and bridges looked like varnished wood and steel wire, they were still very much a part of the tree.

The attendant who opened the door was a woman, so at least she didn’t stare. As much. Yuriko was led to a side office, and there was another woman inside, the ambassador, she assumed. The grey-haired woman looked up from a stack of documents, paper rather than bamboo scrolls, started when she saw Yuriko and stared for a good half minute.

“Oh, pardon me,” the ambassador murmured. “I am Rodina Waldemar of Tiath City, Welcome to my office.”

She stood and gave Yuriko a cautious bow. Yuriko reciprocated and took the seat offered. The attendant and Rhox left the room.

Just as the ambassador observed her, so did Yuriko examine the woman. She was shorter than Yuriko by a couple of inches, had greying green hair and hazel brown eyes. There were frown lines at the corner of her eyes and deeper ones across her forehead. She was also painfully thin, with the bones of her wrist prominently exposed.

“So, how may I help you?” Rodina asked after the awkward silence. “You are Elder Yuriko, yes? Though let's be serious, you aren’t a Geist wielder, and you…you’re still in your teens, aren’t you?”

“Correct,” Yuriko sighed. “The title is something Elder Otlaca insisted on giving me. We met in the Labyrinth and I helped his people fight the Beast Tide.”

“Ah, yes. Of course. The Beast Tide, a semi-annual treasure trove typically monopolized by Vizugmon City. So the Lucentians succeeded.” Rodina nodded thoughtfully, “So, why did you seek me out? You seem well on your way to a comfortable and indolent life.”

“Huh, oh, no. I’ve merely accepted Otlaca’s hospitality. I’m a stranger on this plane, having found myself cast here by circumstances beyond my control.” Yuriko paused to take a deep breath. “I seek to return to the plane of Rumiga, and I’ve been informed that Tiath City is one of two where a natural Chaos Channel has formed and is regularly used by foreign merchants.”

“Rumiga plane…” Rodina mused, “You are…?”

“A citizen of the Eternal Empire.”

Yuriko didn’t miss the slight narrowing of Rodina’s eyes, nor the quick return to neutrality. What was that about?

“A Verdanian. You’re a long way from home.”

“A Chaos storm brought me here.”

“Well, well.” Rodina leaned her elbows against the desk and rested her chin on her palms. Yuriko kept her posture straight, with her hands placed above her lap, palms upward. “It’s true that Tiath City has a planar quay, and off-plane merchants dock there. But Tiath City is several hundred leagues from here, and across the Tonnerre Sea. Travelling through the water is…complicated.”

“How so?” Yuriko asked.

“This time of year the weather is far from ideal. Storm surges, waterspouts and whirlpools. And pirates. A band of particularly vicious pirates are terrorizing the waterways in and around the Tonnerre region. You'd have better luck using the land bridges, but even then, it's a terrible and long journey.”

“I don’t mind. I would like nothing more than to return home.”

“I see. Well, I can’t issue a Writ of Travel so easily. Please give me a few weeks and you’ll have your pass. Ah, mayhap you should arrange to join a caravan heading to Tiath, but because of the…tensions between Vizugmon and Lucenti…” Rodina shrugged and gave her a toothy grin.

“Very well, may I know the associated fees in procuring the Writ of Travel?”

“Administrative fees are mere five silver leaves.”

“So little?”

“It’s more for fabricating the writ, more than anything else.”

“Oh, uh, do I need to change my coins?”

“Not at all. The Denari is the planar coinage.”

“Ah, I see. Thank you for your time, your Excellency.” Yuriko stood and offered a short bow.

Rodina stood and returned her bow. “Not at all. Have a pleasant journey.”

“Thank you.”