Book 7. Chapter 36: Rise of the empire
As Aztu explained, I learned my experience with the Occult was uncommon among occultists.
Mainly in that I started with one of the most powerful fractals compared to everyone else: The soul fractal.
Most warlocks and occultists kept the soul fractal as the final gate to pass, leaving it to a small handful that could keep the secret. Both for prestige, but also for the more practical reasons Hexis had told me - namely, not dying early.
Other occult lineages like the wild armor ones, got squashed out too quickly specifically from discovering the soul fractal first. They’d crack open a relic armor, examine the soul fractal within and replicate it, allowing them to use all abilities of Urs's final relic armor - including strength, shields, heat, and anti-gravity. Those were connected to the central soul fractal, and they’d never be able to unlink those with simple copies. Other minor fractals lingered through the armors and could be used individually. It made wild-armor linages powerful occultists right from the start, and easily drew attention to them like a beacon.
I didn't hear of anything similar to the Winterblossom technique, so likely they didn't have an armor's AI whisper secrets of the imperial imperators Like Journey had with me. Just knowing it was possible had been what prompted me to seek out a shortcut. Imperators could move fast with training, but none were warlocks so they never worked with the fractal. And warlocks didn't spend years training or learning about relic armors, so none of them got the idea.
Still, even without the Winterblossom technique, someone always ended up drawing the eye of the machines. Not even a year into my journey as an occultist, and already I had the eyes of Relinquished herself on me. Such is the fate of occultists who venture out of their gilded towers with knowledge this arcane.
But that soul fractal made its way into Urs's armors only in his final iterations. Up till then, the armors were barebones - because Urs never discovered the soul fractal until he met Tsuya.
I was starting to see just how seperated knowledge had been among different organizations and people across the world. If Urs hadn't ever met Tsuya, his armors would have never been as they are now. And if I'd never met Cathida or gotten the administrator password from Tsyua, I'd never have come up with half the things I did.
But Tsuya had found Urs. And that was enough for the domino of effects that led to where I stood now. Talen's book into the occult, Urs's fully realized armor, Cathida's knowledge of imperators and how the armors functioned, Kidra's intuition - so much individual knowledge from different people all put together to bring me where I was now.