The morning after Magistra Vex's arrival brought an unexpected request delivered through Mira while Ashen was getting dressed.
"The imperial researcher asks if you'd like to visit her workstation," Mira said, looking uncertain. "Your mother already approved, but said you can decline if you're not interested."
Ashen considered this while buttoning his shirt. Vex was making a direct approach rather than working through his parents. That suggested she wanted informal interaction rather than formal testing—a chance to observe him naturally instead of in controlled conditions.
Smart. She knows I'm wary of official tests, so she's offering casual observation instead. Less threatening to a child, but potentially more revealing if I'm not careful. Still, refusing would be suspicious in its own way. Gifted children are usually curious about scientific equipment.
"Okay," he said. "That sounds interesting."
Mira led him to the wing where Magistra Vex had established her base of operations. Two rooms had been converted into a makeshift laboratory—one for data analysis, one for equipment storage and calibration. The data room's door stood open, revealing walls covered in maps marked with rift locations, tables holding sensing instruments, and Vex herself reviewing scrolls of recorded measurements.
She looked up when Ashen entered, her expression brightening with genuine welcome. "Good morning! Thank you for visiting. I thought you might enjoy seeing how spatial research actually works."
"Mama said you have special equipment," Ashen replied, playing the curious child role. "What does it do?"
"Come, I'll show you." Vex gestured to a table where several devices rested. "This one measures essence fluctuations in the spatial dimension. See these crystals? They resonate at different frequencies depending on how stable space is around them."
She demonstrated, activating the device. The crystals began glowing in steady patterns—blue for stable space, with occasional green flickers indicating minor natural variations.
"Right now everything's normal," Vex explained. "But near rift locations, the patterns become chaotic. Red indicates severe instability. Sometimes we even see colors that shouldn't be possible, which suggests dimensional overlap."
Ashen watched with his Primordial Sovereign Eyes, seeing both the device's operation and the actual spatial structure it was attempting to measure. The instrument was clever but crude—like trying to map an ocean using a bucket. It captured data but missed ninety percent of the actual complexity.
"Can I touch it?" he asked.
"Of course. It won't hurt you."
Ashen placed his small hand near the crystal array. Immediately, the pattern shifted. The blue glow intensified, but underlying it, colors that Magistra Vex had described as "impossible" began flickering—silver and gold and something that might have been transparent white if such a thing could exist.
Vex leaned forward, eyes widening. "That's... unusual. The device is reacting to your presence."
"Is that bad?"
"No, just unexpected. Most people don't generate readings at all pre-awakening. You're producing essence fluctuations that the instrument interprets as spatial-temporal phenomena."
Because I'm not "most people" and my Primordial Physique naturally radiates essence across multiple conceptual dimensions. But I can't tell her that, so let's see how she interprets this.
"What does it mean?" Ashen asked innocently.
"I'm not entirely sure yet," Vex admitted, her scientific honesty showing. "It could indicate latent spatial affinity that hasn't manifested formally. Or unusual essence circulation patterns. Or..." She paused, clearly debating how much theoretical speculation to share with a four-year-old. "Or your essence signature is more complex than standard developmental models predict."
"Is complex good or bad?"
"Neither. Just different." She smiled reassuringly. "Think of it like this—most people have essence that's one color. Yours seems to have multiple colors mixed together. That's not wrong, just unusual."
Actually quite accurate as analogies go. My Primordial essence incorporates Space, Time, and Sword concepts simultaneously, which would appear as multi-layered complexity to any measurement system sophisticated enough to detect it.
Ashen removed his hand and the crystals returned to their normal blue patterns. Vex made quick notes on a scroll, her expression showing that researcher's hunger for data that demanded deeper investigation.
"Can I ask you something?" Ashen said, shifting to a different angle. "Why do you study space? What made you interested?"
Vex's expression softened, the intense researcher focus giving way to something more personal. "When I was young, maybe eight years old, I witnessed a spatial rift open near my home. Just a small one, but something came through—a creature that looked like crystal and shadow mixed together. It existed for maybe thirty seconds before reality rejected it and it dissolved."
She set down her notes, lost in memory. "That moment showed me that reality was stranger and more complex than anyone taught in schools. I wanted to understand why that creature couldn't exist here, what rules governed dimensional stability, how reality decided what belonged and what didn't."
"Did you figure it out?"
"Partly. I've spent fifteen years studying and I probably understand maybe ten percent of the actual mechanisms involved." She laughed self-deprecatingly. "The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know. That's the nature of studying reality itself—every answer raises three new questions."
Ashen appreciated the honesty. Too many adults pretended to know more than they did. Vex acknowledged the limits of her understanding, which suggested genuine intellectual integrity.
"Do you think you'll ever understand everything?" he asked.
"No. Reality is too complex for any single mind to fully comprehend. But maybe I'll understand enough to help prevent disasters. That's worth the effort even if complete knowledge is impossible."
Pragmatic goals based on realistic assessment of limitations. She really is exceptional at what she does—not claiming godlike understanding but working methodically within actual capabilities. I can respect that approach.
"Your equipment is really interesting," Ashen said, meaning it. "How does this one work?"
He pointed to a different device—a crystalline sphere suspended in an essence field matrix.
Vex brightened, clearly delighted to have an interested audience. "That's a temporal flow monitor. It measures how fast time is passing in local space. Normally time is constant, but near spatial rifts, temporal flow can accelerate or decelerate. This sphere rotates at a rate determined by temporal consistency—faster means time is moving slower, slower means time is accelerating."
She activated it and the sphere began rotating at steady pace. "Right now it's normal. But I've recorded instances near active rifts where the sphere stops completely or spins so fast it becomes a blur."
Ashen watched the device with his Primordial Sovereign Eyes, seeing the actual temporal flow it was attempting to measure. The sphere's rotation was driven by temporal essence interaction, a clever application of how time-affinity essence responded to local chronological density.
"What happens if time stops?" he asked.
"It doesn't stop completely—that would be a temporal dead zone incompatible with consciousness. But severe temporal deceleration means events in that space occur much slower relative to outside observers. Someone trapped in such a zone might experience seconds while hours pass externally."
"That sounds scary."
"It is. Which is why we establish safety perimeters around active rift sites. The spatial distortions are dangerous, but the temporal effects can be even worse because they're harder to detect without instruments."
They spent the next hour exploring Vex's equipment collection. She explained each device's purpose, demonstrated their functions, and answered Ashen's questions with patience that suggested she genuinely enjoyed teaching.
Ashen absorbed everything, comparing her measurements against what his eyes perceived directly. Her methodology was sound even if her instruments were limited. Given enough time and data, she'd probably derive accurate theoretical models even without his enhanced perception.
She's doing real science here. Not just collecting data mindlessly, but forming hypotheses, testing them, refining understanding based on results. Most researchers don't have that combination of theoretical knowledge and practical experimentation skill.
Eventually Mira arrived to collect Ashen for his lessons with Master Corvin. He thanked Magistra Vex for showing him the equipment, receiving a warm smile in return.
"You're welcome anytime," Vex said. "It's refreshing to have someone ask intelligent questions instead of just being impressed by flashy instruments."
As Ashen left, he noticed her returning to her notes, but glancing at the spatial measurement device that had produced unusual readings when he'd touched it. Her researcher instincts were clearly engaged, trying to explain an anomaly that didn't fit standard models.
She'll keep investigating. That's her nature—problems demand solutions, mysteries demand explanations. I'll need to be careful around her instruments. They're not sophisticated enough to penetrate my concealment protocols completely, but they can detect enough abnormality to fuel her curiosity.
Master Corvin's lesson that morning covered advanced language structure—grammatical systems that most nobles didn't learn until academy age. Ashen demonstrated comprehension that made Corvin simultaneously proud and slightly unnerved, as usual.
"You continue to exceed every expectation I set," Corvin said, reviewing Ashen's written work. "Your grasp of conditional subjunctive constructions is perfect. Most twelve-year-olds struggle with this material."
"It makes sense once you understand the pattern," Ashen replied. "Languages follow rules like mathematics does."
"They do, though most people find linguistic logic less intuitive than numerical logic." Corvin set aside the papers. "Have you given any thought to what you'd like to specialize in? After awakening and academy entry, students choose focus areas—combat cultivation, theoretical essence studies, territorial administration, diplomatic arts."
Ashen considered how to answer honestly without revealing too much. "I want to understand how things work. Not just cultivation, but everything. Why essence behaves differently based on affinity, how space and time interact, what makes some techniques more efficient than others."
"A researcher's mindset. You'd do well in theoretical studies." Corvin paused. "Though such paths typically require less combat training. Your father would probably prefer you develop at least adequate martial capability."
"Can't I do both? Learn theory and practice combat?"
"Of course, though most people find they need to specialize to achieve excellence. Dividing focus means slower advancement in both areas."
True for most people. But I'll have advantages most people don't possess—Primordial-tier learning capability, perfect perception that understands techniques instantly, and time dilation training eventually. I can master multiple disciplines simultaneously while appearing to specialize normally.
"I'll decide after awakening," Ashen said, which was the politically safe response. "Maybe my affinity will make the choice obvious."
"Perhaps it will."
The lesson continued with literature analysis—examining a classical text about ancient heroes and discussing thematic elements. Ashen provided interpretations that impressed Corvin while being careful not to offer analyses so sophisticated they'd seem impossible for his age.
It was a constant balancing act. Show enough intelligence to be considered gifted but not so much that people started asking uncomfortable questions about how a four-year-old understood concepts that required decades of experience to truly appreciate.
Afternoon brought an unexpected event. One of Magistra Vex's monitoring stations detected a spatial rift forming in real-time, still small but growing. The researcher immediately departed with her team and a guard escort to study the phenomenon while it was active.
Ashen watched from his window as the group rode out, Magistra Vex on horseback despite her scholarly focus, clearly excited about the opportunity to gather live data.
She's probably hoping to observe rift formation mechanisms directly. Brave, considering she doesn't know what might come through. But that's dedication—prioritizing knowledge acquisition even when there's personal risk involved.
He extended his Primordial Sovereign Eyes toward the location she'd headed for, pushing his perception across miles of intervening space. His vision showed him the rift site—a tear in reality approximately two meters across, edges crackling with dimensional instability. Spatial fabric warped around it, creating distortion fields visible as recursive geometric patterns overlaying normal space.
And through the rift, he could perceive the other side. Not clearly—his eyes weren't strong enough yet to maintain focus through active dimensional barriers—but enough to confirm that something existed beyond, something that operated on different physical principles than this reality.
The rift collapsed after seventeen minutes, reality's natural repair mechanisms closing the tear before anything could pass through. Magistra Vex's instruments would have captured the entire sequence, providing her with invaluable data.
That makes twenty-three rifts in seven weeks. The acceleration is continuing exponentially. At this rate, by next year there'll be hundreds. In five years, thousands. The timeline toward dimensional breakdown is proceeding faster than the novel described for this period. Either my memory is flawed or something about my presence has altered progression speed.
Either way, it confirms that I don't have as much preparation time as I initially calculated. Need to advance faster once cultivation begins.
When Magistra Vex returned hours later, she looked exhausted but exhilarated. Ashen watched from the library as she rushed directly to her workstation, not even stopping for food, immediately beginning analysis of collected data.
That level of dedication was admirable. Most people prioritized comfort over knowledge acquisition. Vex threw herself into research with single-minded intensity that suggested this wasn't just her job—it was her passion.
I understand that drive. The pursuit of understanding for its own sake, not because of external rewards but because not knowing is intolerable. We're similar in that way, even if our methods and capabilities differ dramatically.
Dinner that evening was subdued. Magistra Vex joined the family but was clearly distracted, mentally still processing her observations. She answered questions about the rift with clinical precision but kept glancing toward her workstation as if eager to return to analysis.
"How many rifts is too many?" Lyra asked bluntly. "Like, at what point do we need to evacuate or something?"
Vex considered the question seriously. "That depends on several factors. Rift frequency, duration, and what comes through them. Right now we're seeing high frequency but short duration with minimal entity breaches. That's manageable with proper monitoring and response protocols."
"What would make it unmanageable?"
"If rifts started staying open for extended periods. Or if the entities coming through were organized rather than random. Or if multiple large rifts opened simultaneously in populated areas." Vex's expression was grave. "Any of those scenarios would represent catastrophic risk."
"Could that happen?"
"Based on current data, the risk is increasing but not yet critical. We have time to develop countermeasures if the research progresses quickly enough."
She's being optimistic for the family's benefit. Her actual assessment, based on the tension in her essence signature and micro-expressions I can read perfectly, is that she's deeply concerned about acceleration patterns. She thinks we might have months before critical threshold, not years. But admitting that would cause panic.
After dinner, Ashen was walking back to his room when he encountered Reikan in the hallway. His eldest brother had been absent most of the day, handling heir responsibilities that kept him occupied with territorial management.
"Ashen," Reikan greeted neutrally. "A moment?"
They stepped into a side chamber, away from general traffic. Reikan studied him with that analytical gaze he used when assessing complex problems.
"Magistra Vex mentioned something interesting today," Reikan said carefully. "She told Father that your essence signature is unusual. More complex than expected for someone pre-awakening."
Ashen kept his expression innocently curious. "What does that mean?"
"I don't know. But you're my youngest brother, and the family's reputation matters. If you have some unusual condition, it needs to be properly understood and managed before awakening ceremony."
Ah. He's not concerned for my wellbeing specifically—he's worried about how abnormality might reflect on House Silverion. That's very Reikan. Duty and appearance over personal connection.
"I feel fine," Ashen said. "The healers say I'm healthy."
"Physical health and essence abnormality are different things." Reikan paused. "I'm not trying to frighten you. Just... be careful around the imperial researcher. She's brilliant but also ambitious. If she discovers something unusual about you, she might prioritize her research over your privacy."
It was perhaps the most personal advice Reikan had ever given him. Not warm, but genuine concern expressed in his characteristic analytical way.
"I'll be careful," Ashen promised. "Thank you for telling me."
Reikan nodded and left, duty fulfilled, relationship with youngest brother maintained at professionally appropriate distance.
Ashen continued to his room, processing the conversation. Reikan wasn't wrong about Magistra Vex's priorities—she did value knowledge acquisition highly. But he'd also underestimated her integrity. Vex wouldn't exploit a child for research purposes, even if she was curious about anomalies she'd detected.
Still, the warning was worth heeding. Curiosity could lead people to justify actions they'd normally consider unethical, especially when chasing understanding of something unprecedented.
That night, lying in bed while his eyes perceived the castle's nighttime activities across multiple floors, Ashen reflected on the day's developments.
Magistra Vex was becoming more interested in him specifically rather than just the spatial phenomena. That was predictable but potentially problematic. Her instruments had detected traces of his Primordial capabilities, enough to mark him as anomalous even if she couldn't identify what made him different.
The spatial rifts were accelerating faster than expected, confirming that something was changing about the timeline he remembered from the novel. Whether that was due to his presence or natural variation in how events unfolded, he needed more data to determine.
And six months remained until awakening ceremony, when his affinities would manifest publicly as S-Rank Space and Time, A-Rank Sword—impressive enough to be notable but concealing the Primordial-tier truth underneath.
Six months to maintain this careful balance. Six months of being the gifted child who's interesting but not impossible. Then cultivation begins and real advancement can start.
Magistra Vex will probably still be here conducting research. She'll want to study how someone with S-Rank spatial affinity develops. That could be useful—her theoretical knowledge might provide insights I can apply without revealing I already understand the principles she's teaching.
But it also means six more months of avoiding her instruments while appearing cooperative. Threading the needle between helpful and revealing.
The system pulsed once.
[PRIMORDIAL AMPLIFICATION SYSTEM]
═══════════════════════════════
No techniques detected.
═══════════════════════════════
Through the window, stars shone in layered dimensional space. His Primordial Sovereign Eyes perceived them not just as light sources but as gravitational anchors, essence generators, temporal fixed points in the cosmic structure.
Somewhere beyond those stars, in dimensions adjacent to this reality, entities that didn't belong here were slowly becoming aware that barriers were weakening. Not intelligent enough yet to coordinate, not organized enough to pose immediate threat, but beginning to notice opportunity.
Decades away from being his problem.
But Magistra Vex was right here, right now, trying to understand forces she couldn't directly perceive, using brilliant deduction and crude instruments to map what his eyes saw with perfect clarity.
Let her continue. Let her make her discoveries. Let her contribute what she could to understanding that wouldn't become urgent for years.
And in the meantime, he'd prepare for what was coming while maintaining the appearance of merely being a gifted child with unusual eyes and advanced comprehension.
Six months until everything changed.
He could wait six months.
Patience had served him well so far.
It would continue serving him through whatever came next.
Outside, the night deepened. Magistra Vex was probably still awake, analyzing data from the rift observation. Aldric was reviewing security reports. Seraphina was doing whatever duchesses did in evening hours.
And Ashen lay in darkness, eyes open, seeing everything, understanding more than anyone suspected, and planning for a future that no one else could imagine.
Tomorrow would bring new observations, new data, new careful steps along the path toward absolute freedom through overwhelming power.
For tonight, rest and observation were enough.
The journey continued, one patient day at a time.