Caeden stared down at the forge, looking over his most recent work. It was a simple piece, something to get back into the flow of things after so long being out of practice. The only way to properly maintain his skills was daily forge work, but recent events hadn't allowed him that luxury. It showed.

The small knife, a Blackwood dagger with a fine Shadow Obsidian edge, was not his best work. The ether mix he had created was slightly off the mark, not meshing as well as he would have liked with the material. Added to that, he could spot the places where his resonance blows had been sloppy, creating instability in the Ki flow of the infusion. All around, it was subpar work that would have had his uncle cuffing his ear and telling him to try again.

Of course, not all his problems were down to a lack of practice. Caeden looked at his left hand. All five fingers, two of them scaly red with clawed talons. He couldn't have imagined how hard it would be to adjust to having his fingers back. Both his fighting and forging styles had been adjusted long ago to suit his missing appendages. Now that they were back, he was relearning things all over again.

It would be to his benefit, in the long run, Caeden knew. The whole time he was learning a half-dozen different weapons, he had been acutely aware of the limitations his maimed hand brought. There were certain grips he couldn't perform, certain attacks that he had to adjust. Overall, his combat was weaker for having lost those fingers. But now that they were back, he couldn't just forget all the changes he had burned into his body.

That didn't even touch on how surreal it was, having them back after so long. Over a quarter of his life, Caeden had been missing these two fingers. He constantly had to remind himself they were back, finding odd moments when he went to grab something that it all came crashing down on him again. Caeden had learned to hold things a certain way with that hand so that he didn't just drop stuff. More than that, his grip with his maimed hand was just fundamentally weaker, and he had spent years learning to subconsciously account for that. Now that the problem was gone, he found himself almost confused whenever he went to hold something. Surprised at how easy it was.

Adding to his difficulties adjusting to the new hand, Caeden had to account for the changes that occurred when he reached Embodiment. Just like when he achieved his Incarnation, the changes he experienced went beyond just the ability to use one of his higher forms. Caeden's messed up soul may have weakened his Incarnation and Embodiment, but it didn't rob him of the basic benefits those higher forms imparted.

When Caeden achieved Incarnation, his aura sense exploded. He could use them more easily and to a more refined degree. At the same time, the range of his aura increased exponentially. As a more subtle benefit, he'd found that his mind was a bit clearer, and he could think a little bit better.

Embodiment had its own benefits. Caeden's body felt like it had ascended to a new level. He was stronger, faster, more flexible, tougher, and honestly even a bit better looking. Added to that, Caeden no longer had to eat or breathe, and his body produced no waste. It was much harder for him to tire out. All in all, Caeden felt like he was barely even human anymore. The difference was startling.

Not to mention the final benefit. Caeden was now immortal. His body no longer aged. It had no effect on him in the immediate future, but it was a strange thought. Of course, Caeden had always been aware that shrouded could become immortal and that most did with their human lifetime. Only the truly incapable or unfortunate shrouded never achieved Embodiment in the course of a hundred-odd years.

But to know that was a different thing entirely from accepting that it was something that had happened to him. Thinking about it more than a little made some actions of other shrouded, actions he hated, make a bit more sense. The absolute disdain most shrouded had for unshrouded made some sense when he put it in perspective. After all, it was hard for him to think about the fact that his uncle would one day die while Caeden would essentially be the same age he was now.

It was hard to care for people that would die and whose great great great grandchildren would all die while you remained unchanged. After a thousand years or ten thousand years, it would be hard to keep seeing those people as actual people. It would be like acknowledging that a fly has feelings. Even if it was true, worrying about it would seem pointless, considering that the fly would be dead before you could blink. So why care?

It was horrible to think about and made Caeden worried for his future. Sure, right now he saw all humans and every other thinking, intelligent species as people who could suffer and deserved happiness and freedom. But what about ten thousand years from now? What would he think then? It felt so unreal and distant that he had a hard time imagining it. Which was the problem.

"How are things going?" Lily interrupted his somber thoughts, stepping into the forge room. "Having fun?"

"Hah! Yeah, I guess." He shook his head. Laughing made him feel better, and Lily's presence was a welcome interruption. "Although I'm more than a little rusty." He flicked the dagger across the room and into a bucket with the other failed products he'd made over the last week.

"I'm sure the hand isn't helping." Of course, Caeden had mentioned his struggles to her already.

"Yeah, still getting used to it." Caeden nodded. Lily was moving slowly through the room, looking at all the ether refining equipment with interest.

"Maybe you need a break?" She asked.

"You say that every time you come and get me," Caeden said, abandoning the idea of restarting the project.

"Well, every time I come down here, you need a break. Come on; we have a super-yacht magic future ship with more ethertech than you could dream. You've barely seen any of it except for the forge." Lily stuck her lip out in an exaggerated pout. "Come have some fun with me."

Caeden laughed. The longer they had officially been in a relationship, the more playful and…comfortable she had become. It was something Lily only did when they were alone. She could be affectionate and close when their friends were around, but this kind of slightly teasing banter was something that only came out when it was just the two of them. Caeden wondered how she would act when they were in a more public setting. It hadn't come up so far, so he was curious.

"Well, what would you want to do?" Caeden responded in kind, shifting toward Lily and adding a teasing lilt to his voice.

Lily flushed slightly. "Weeeell…" She let the word hang for a long moment. "I thought maybe we could read some of the old books here." She said in a rush.

Caeden smirked. "But all those books are in that super old language we can't read."

Lily flinched slightly, knowing he'd caught onto her. Despite that, she kept going, sauntering up to him and leaning against his chest while staring up at him. "That's why I need you to come. Forged Infinity can translate." She gazed up at him, eyes wide and innocent, "Pleeeeease?"

Caeden smiled despite himself. He knew Lily was just messing with him, but he wanted to listen to her anyway. It's not like he had any particular projects he had to do…

Lily's smile widened. "You're gonna say yes."

Caeden chuckled. "I'm going to say yes."

Lily reached up in a flash and tapped his nose. "I've got you pretty figured out at this point, I think. Come on; I want you to read the titles to me so we can pick something we both find interesting." She rushed out of the room, knowing Caeden would follow.

He shook his head, making sure to shut down the forge and secure the ether stores in the room. Nothing he had out was reactive, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Especially considering where he was. Walking out of the small forge‒it was only the size of his small village forge but with a lot more fancy equipment‒Caeden entered the wide, tastefully decorated hallway of the ethership they had commandeered.

When Caeden had first seen the ship from the outside, he hadn't been very impressed. It was small, smaller by an order of magnitude compared to the cruiser they had arrived on. Some thirty feet in length and only fifteen feet in height, it was roughly twice the size of the skiff they had used on the mountainous continent. Obviously, considering its origins, it was a beautiful vessel. It was a polished bronze with white accents in a flowing curved shape that spoke of elegance and refined grace. But Caeden wasn't sure it had enough space to hold enough food for the trip back to the Academy. When there were many much larger vessels for the taking, he didn't see why they would pick this one.

But Caeden trusted Lily's judgment, and she wasn't wrong. Not by a long shot. The answer was obvious as soon as he walked into the ship's hold. He was greeted by a large circular room decorated with a homey but elegant decor in the same colors and motif as the ship itself. The room was thirty feet across, with twenty-foot ceilings. The whole ship was one massive spacial infusion.

Internally, it was huge. The homey, relatively understated decor made Caeden think that this was someone's home once upon a time. They might have lived on this ship. It had several well-appointed bedrooms, a fully-stocked and massive kitchen, a botanical garden with several varieties of edible plants, a pool, a garage to dock smaller ships, and even a sort of game room with an attached library. This not including the actual functional parts of the ship, like the control bridge or the engine room.

And then there was the crowning jewel. A fully-functional etherforge with highly advanced ether refining and forging equipment. Things even more advanced than the tool at the Academy forge. Caeden fell in love immediately. The ship even had its own ether and magical material stocks in an adjacent room. It made Caeden wonder what exactly happened to all the people that used to work in this ancient place that they would abandon a perfectly working piece of moving art like this ship. A question he was unlikely to ever get an answer to.

The only thing the ship was missing were any training rooms that could withstand shrouded fighting. However, after inspecting the control room Caeden had noted that the ship's spacial infusion was somehow designed to be modular, and he could add on to it by providing the proper ether and materials. Comparing it to other ships in the bay, this one was still a top-of-the-line ethership. Even by the outsized standards of ancient times when the ethertech was so much more advanced. They had essentially gained a fully functional, modular base that could adapt to their needs.

Caeden spent a few hours relaxing with Lily. The ship's library was contained on hologram projections, so thousands of books could be held in the same space as a single traditional tome. Forged Infinity could force the holograms to translate into Central Common, so technically, Caeden didn't need to be there, but Lily insisted they find something they could take turns reading to each other. It was more fun than he thought it would be.

"Uhh, guys, you might want to see this!" Cat's yell interrupted their reading. The slightly panicked tone in her voice made them hurry into the control room. It was lit up with a series of holographic surfaces in addition to the main controls, which were analog.

Cat was sitting at one of the many chairs in the room, one which sat at the sensor array. The ship had better sensor equipment than anything Caeden had ever heard of. Right now was a perfect example. Cat was looking at a high-clarity image of the Academy, and they were still half a day out from Central City. They had covered a month's worth of travel in only a week.

"Look, I think it already started." Cat was pointing emphatically at the display. Caeden had to agree. There was a dome of black energy covering the entire Academy. It looked like the void of the Starry Sea in between all the stars. This definitely resembled the events that Kevin had described.

"Shit, how long could that have been up?" Caeden murmured, watching the scene from thousands of miles away.

"There are response teams already established; look here." Lily pointed to a lower section of the image near one of the Academy entrances. There was a building that had not been there the last time they were on campus. It was surrounded by shrouded pumping endless streams of attacks into the barrier.

"You're right. It has to have been a few hours for them to have devolved into just hitting the damn thing. But I wasn't expecting it to block physical entry." Caeden looked across the scanner readouts, trying to find more information on the dome.

"Here," Cat pointed to a particular hologram. It seemed she had found what he was looking for first. Both Caeden and Lily leaned in, pouring over the data their ship's advanced sensors had gleaned from the dome.

"It doesn't block passage," Lily noted. "I think they're not entering because they can't endure the suppression effects willingly. Plus, I'm willing to bet the campus is swarming with revolutionaries. They have a much better fighting chance against shrouded when all auras are locked down. Considering how many buildings are on campus, without aura senses, they could spring some devastating surprise attacks. No doubt everyone left outside the dome was too scared to risk going in."

Caeden snorted. "Yeah, I can see that. Having your aura completely locked down is terrifying. Now that you mention it, I'm sure everyone who was willing to go in already has. Well, shit. We need to get to the field generator. I think we have more information on the topic than anyone else wandering around down there."

Lily nodded, her face a mask of determination. "Our people are in there. We need to get them out."