The next morning came with the kind of noise that meant the entire Deux Cities was awake before most people had even finished dressing. News ran through the districts faster than a Praesit line. By the time Asran had properly gotten out of bed, the city already felt different.
He found out the reason almost immediately. The first report was about the refugees.
People from the Timeless Realm had been sent into the lower Deux Cities as new residents whose merit would begin from zero. That alone would have been enough to make the whole city talk for days, but the detail that followed made it clear this was not a temporary placement. They had homes waiting for them. Memory Runes had already been used so they could understand the ORS technology instead of wandering around in confusion.
That made a lot of sense to Asran the moment he heard it. If you dropped people from another realm into the Deux Cities without teaching them how anything worked, you'd get panic, accidents and probably a lot of stupid rumors. The Lotus Lady of Miracles had clearly anticipated that.
Then the second report hit. The Merit Change System had been selected.
Asran almost thought he had misheard it at first because the announcement didn't sound real enough to be useful. Merit changes were never small events but this one was different. Instead of shifting merit toward either of the major ones from five standard sections, it had favored the least appreciated one.
Exploration.
He stopped moving in the middle of the room and just stared at the wall screen while the announcement replayed itself in polished official language. Exploration had been the neglected sector for centuries. It existed, technically, but most of the people inside it had been pushed into the outer edges of the city doing errands, odd jobs and low-priority work just to keep their merit points from sinking too low. It had been the place people ended up when they liked movement more than prestige. It was not the path families bragged about.
Now its merit points had increased by four hundred percent until the next Merit Change System.
Asran stared at the announcement a little longer, then actually sat down on the edge of his bed because his legs had gone a little too loose underneath him.
That was too perfect.
He had chosen the Exploration Sector when he'd become old enough to choose for himself. He wanted it badly enough to think about it for years but his father had changed it not because he wanted to ruin Asran's life, but because of family expectation and the old pressure that always came with being a Delia descendant.
Combat was the safer choice in his father's eyes. Combat was tradition. Combat was contribution. Combat was what his family was supposed to do so the choice had been buried under family authority and Asran had been left with a locked path and a deadline that was slowly moving toward meaninglessness.
Except now, it wasn't.
Now the original choice was still alive and the time remaining before it became null and void had not expired yet. That meant the Exploration Sector was suddenly valid again. He had gone to sleep on the edge of being stuck and he had woken up inside a political shift that practically handed him a ladder out of Combat and straight into the one thing he actually wanted.
He sat there for a second, then let out a breath that was half laugh and half disbelief.
"This is way too specific."
And it was. That was the problem.
The new rule had been placed by the Lotus Lady of Miracles. If a sixteen-year-old chose a merit sector, they had two years to change it. No one else could override it for them during that window. Not their parents, relatives or anyone trying to act superior because of old family rank or old assumptions. It was absurdly precise. Asran had never seen a rule that felt so obviously designed for a single person without naming that person directly. He sat there staring at the screen again and realized, slowly enough that it made his stomach tighten, that the woman he'd met yesterday might be far more important than he'd thought.
Did she know his situation?
That was the first thought that actually made him think.
He got out of bed and went downstairs. His mother and father were already awake, which meant they had clearly seen the same news and were deciding how to behave about it. When Asran entered the room, both of them looked at him with the kind of careful silence that told him they knew exactly what he was going to ask before he said it.
He didn't waste time.
"So, are you going to deny me the chance to go to the Exploration Sector?"
His mother didn't answer right away. His father looked like he was trying to decide whether to be stern, resigned or impressed by how quickly the situation had become impossible to control.
Asran folded his arms.
"Because if you are, that'd be very embarrassing for both of you. Everyone knows about the choice I made."
His father finally exhaled.
"No. I'm allowing it."
His mother's eyes flicked toward him, then back to Asran. She didn't look angry. That was the strange part. She looked more like someone who knew the argument was already dead and was deciding whether to mourn it.
"The Combat Sector is still second, but—"
Asran didn't let him finish. He practically lit up.
"Then I'm going to the Exploration Academy."
His father closed his eyes for a second in defeat, which was almost comical given how serious the whole conversation had been a moment ago. His mother gave a faint sigh, though there was a little softness in it too, as if she'd long since accepted that forcing Asran down a path he didn't want had never been sustainable.
Asran laughed once under his breath.
The rule had changed. The sector had risen. His family had backed off and the woman from yesterday, the one with the white hair, blue eyes and that calm smile that had made him feel like an idiot in his own head, suddenly seemed less like a random coincidence and more like a moving piece on a board he hadn't known he was standing on.
Later, after he returned to his room, he sat on the edge of his bed and looked around the space that only existed because his family's merit had kept them comfortably above the level where practical concerns became painful. His room was massive, clean and expensive in the quiet way rich houses always were. He stared at the wall for a moment, then leaned back and exhaled.
Who was she?
She had known too much. Maybe not everything, maybe, but enough to talk like someone who understood the city's structure from the inside. She'd asked him questions that weren't random. She'd mentioned the Merit Change System in a way that made it sound like she understood exactly why it worked the way it did. And she'd used Rune Teleportation so casually that it had barely looked like effort.
That wasn't normal.
He narrowed his eyes and tried to remember everything she'd said, the exact rhythm of it, the way she'd smiled and the fact that she'd somehow known his name. He hadn't told her which meant she'd either guessed, known his family or had access to information he definitely didn't.
And then there was the biggest question of all.
Did she know his situation?
Did she know he'd been forced into Combat by family expectation? Did she know the Exploration Sector was the one thing he actually wanted? Did the Lotus Lady of Miracles somehow recognize that through her and bend the system for him without saying so out loud?
Asran leaned back and stared at the ceiling. The more he thought about it, the more impossible the woman became. And the more impossible she became, the more he wanted to see her again.
------
Everyone in the Shvé Civilization knew what the Five Sectors were and what their goal was in the long run.
The Five Sectors are basically the backbone of how the Shvé Civilization keeps the ORS functional without turning into a mess. The Academies train people for them but the Sectors themselves are bigger than school subjects. They are the five major ways people contribute to the city and keep the whole structure alive.
In a place like the ORS, where you've got a fifty-floor system, a massive population, afterlife layers, agricultural floors, military factions and future expansion into the Immortal Anchor, each Sector has a real job to do. None of them are decorative. All of them matter.
The Arts Sector is not just about painting, music, dance, literature or performance. In the Shvé Civilization, arts preserve identity. They keep tradition alive. They make the people feel like they belong to something older than the current generation. That matters more than most people admit.
In the ORS, the Arts Sector helps maintain cultural continuity across huge populations that live on different floors and in different conditions. It keeps the civilization from becoming emotionally sterile. If the ORS only had power systems, afterlife systems, farming and military discipline, it would function but it would feel dead. Arts is what keeps the city active. It also helps with ceremonial design, memorials, public events, sacred architecture and the way the civilization presents itself to itself.
The Politics Sector is what stops the whole civilization from tearing itself apart. That sounds dramatic but it is true. The ORS is too large and populated for everything to run on instinct or family influence alone. Politics handles governance, law, mediation, floor administration, resource allocation, social rank disputes and long-term planning between factions. It is the Sector that turns power into structure instead of chaos.
The Academy of Politics produces leaders, negotiators, coordinators and administrators who can keep entire sections of the ORS from colliding with each other. If Arts keeps the civilization meaningful, Politics keeps it coherent. It is also the Sector most likely to notice when a problem is going to become a disaster long before anyone else does, which is why people underestimate it at their own risk.
The Combat Sector is obvious on the surface but in the ORS it is bigger than just fighting. Yes, it trains soldiers, protectors, dueling specialists and defense teams. Yes, it prepares people to handle intrusions, monsters, uprisings, kingdom conflicts and anything else that tries to break into the Spire's systems. But it also teaches discipline, response speed, tactical awareness, emergency control and how to defend areas without destroying them in the process. In a world where wars can happen, the Combat Sector is the shield layer. It keeps the ORS from becoming easy prey. It also produces people who can serve in faction armies like Insignia, though it isn't easy.
The Economics Sector is the one people ignore until the system starts failing. That is a mistake. Economics in the ORS covers more than money. It covers trade, labor management, distribution, supply chains, floor productivity, housing support, transport flow and all the boring but essential things that keep ten million souls from becoming a logistical nightmare.
It's always in the top three in terms of merit points. Any economic activity belongs in this section.
The Academy of Economics teaches people how to run the practical side of civilization. It deals with the numbers that make daily life possible. Who gets what, when they get it, how much the system can absorb, how merit interacts with material access, how the various floors remain stable and how to keep the ORS from wasting its own strength. If Politics is the brain of the civilization, Economics is the circulation system. It moves everything where it needs to go. No matter how grand the ORS gets, if Economics fails, the whole thing starts starving in a very polite and very expensive way.
The Exploration Sector is probably the one that feels the most romantic and that is part of why it gets overlooked. People hear "exploration" and think adventure, curiosity and open roads which is true, but not nearly enough. In the ORS, Exploration is how the civilization expands its understanding of itself. It sends people into unknown floors, hidden regions, uncharted passages, sealed zones and strange environments that don't fit the usual city logic.
Exploration keeps the civilization from becoming trapped inside what it already knows. It finds resources, maps danger, discovers forgotten systems and opens routes that the other Sectors eventually depend on. It also helps with contact beyond the Spire when the time comes. If the ORS is going to reach the Immortal Anchor properly, Exploration is the Sector that starts making that movement possible.
A person from Politics knows how to govern and stabilize. A person from Combat knows how to defend and endure. A person from Economics knows how to sustain and organize. A person from Exploration knows how to expand and discover. That's why the merit system matters so much. It decides where talent is most useful to the civilization at a given time.
For the ORS, this structure is powerful because it keeps everything interlocked. Arts makes the people care. Politics keeps them ordered. Combat keeps them safe. Economics keeps them supplied. Exploration keeps them growing. Without one of those, the system gets weaker. Without two, it starts deforming. Without all five, the ORS stops being a civilization and starts being a giant shell full of people who don't know what they're building anymore.
That's why the five Sectors matter so much.
°°°°°°°
The third piece of news hit the Shvé Civilization in the afternoon.
It came through the public channels first, then the academy screens, then the station boards, then the markets and the residential halls until the whole Deux Cities had the same stunned expression at once.
The Lotus Lady of Miracles had made an announcement.
The Shvé Civilization was moving toward the Immortal Anchor of the Timeless Realm and when the time came, they would not remain a hidden population tucked away in two cities and a few protected floors. They would begin acting like a real civilization across the wider structure of the ORS.
That alone would have been enough to keep people talking for weeks but the part that sent the Exploration Sector into a frenzy was the next part.
The Exploration Sector would be allowed to go beyond the floors they already knew and begin exploring the other major floors of the ORS.
For most people in the Shvé Civilization, that sounded vague. For the people in Exploration, it sounded like a dream that had finally stopped being theoretical.
The reason it shook everyone so badly was simple. Most Shvé citizens knew almost nothing about the ORS outside of the Deux Cities, the afterlife floors and the Agricultural Floors. Even those areas felt like major world regions to them. The idea that there were still other large floors hidden above and beyond their usual reach had always been something they heard about in fragments, never in practice.
Exploration had spent generations preparing for discovery with almost nothing to discover. They had trained for routes that did not yet exist, built maps from rumor and learned survival methods for floors they had not been allowed to enter. That was why this announcement landed so hard.
It was the first real confirmation that all of that waiting had been for something.
The Lotus Lady of Miracles had granted them her favor to go out and discover those floors for themselves.
That was the part that made the Exploration students look like they were about to explode from excitement. For generations, they had wanted exactly this. The wanted real contact with the unknown parts of the ORS that had only existed in stories, classified records, and the occasional comment from someone higher up in the system.
And there was history behind it too.
The Towermaster had apparently told people centuries ago that Exploration was his favorite Sector. He had said that it would get the highest benefits when the time was right. Nobody had known exactly what that meant at the time but now the meaning had finally arrived with the force of a breaking tide. The time was now. The Sector that had waited the longest was finally being rewarded for its patience.
Asran found out in the middle of the weekend and for once he had to sit down while reading the announcement.
He had been halfway through checking route schedules when the academy feed updated and the whole thing flashed across the screen in official wording and Lotus Lady seal work. The Exploration Sector would receive broader floor access. Training groups would be organized for real cross-floor entry. Security accompaniment would be provided through Insignia factions where required. Exploration students would no longer be limited to outer observation routes and controlled side corridors. They would be allowed to move into other major floors under monitored but legitimate authority.
He read it twice and a third time. He laughed once under his breath because the timing was so good it was almost insulting.
His original choice had never stopped being there. The system had just refused to let it disappear at the wrong moment. Now the Sector itself had changed position in merit value and suddenly the path he had wanted for years was valid again. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the wall for a while after that, just letting the scale of it settle in.
The Exploration Academy was going to matter now.
That meant the practical classes were going to become much more serious and everyone in the Sector knew it. Exploration was never just walking around and looking at pretty things. If they were going to enter major floors, they had to be ready for structural shifts, hostile environments, unknown systems and whatever living problems those floors might contain. They also had to be able to defend themselves. Even though they would be accompanied by Insignia factions for protection, that did not mean the journey was safe. It only meant they would not be walking into danger completely alone.
So Asran spent the three-day weekend getting ready. He started with his gear.
He cleaned what needed cleaning, checked what needed checking and sorted through the equipment list his academy had already distributed with unusual urgency. Field packs, marker tools, chalk, emergency rations, map paper, signal tags, compasses built for ORS floor drift, defensive blades and such stuff was set. He laid everything out on his desk and went through it twice because he did not trust the academy to have gotten every detail right and he trusted himself even less to improvise once he was in the field.
Then he moved on to training.
Exploration classes were practical, which meant they were not allowed to pretend danger would politely wait in the corner. Students had to know how to read terrain, identify threat patterns, recognize unstable architecture, follow structured evacuation drills and move through unknown space without causing a mess for the people behind them.
They also had to fight to defend themselves until protection arrived. The instructors did not let them forget that. A person who could not survive five minutes on an unexplored floor was not an explorer.
So Asran trained. He was already from a Combat Sector generation so it wasn't hard to catch up.
By the second day, the whole academy district was buzzing with it. Students from Exploration were walking a little taller. Teachers who had spent years quietly preparing routes and theory models were suddenly being asked for practical plans. Combat students were grumbling because Exploration had become exciting overnight. Economics students were already predicting the logistical headache. Politics students were trying to frame the whole thing as a controlled societal expansion. Arts students were apparently inspired by the announcement and had already started drawing floor concepts they had never seen. Everyone had an opinion.
Asran mostly ignored the noise and kept preparing. By the third day, he was tired enough to feel calm.
When he finally sat down in the evening, his gear was packed and his notes were stacked neatly by the wall. He looked over the schedule for the upcoming Exploration practicals and then paused because a thought suddenly returned to him with annoying clarity.
The woman he had met at sunset.
She had vanished using Rune Teleportation like it was nothing and now, only a short time later, the Lotus Lady of Miracles had made the Exploration Sector suddenly important in a way that directly benefited him. He rubbed the back of his neck and let out a quiet breath.
"Either way, I'm grateful to the Lotus Lady of Miracles. Thank you for listening to my prayers. And I'm sorry that I used to get mad at you for not helping."