"How did you know his name?" Mikayla asked.

  "After I talked to him while we were using the Black Knight Triplex, I checked the combined status sheet. It was right there," Asika shrugged.

  "Oh, yeah, right," Mikayla nodded, wincing. She'd forgotten that was an option.

  "What are you going to do?" Keldryn asked.

  "Had a feeling you were in the loop," Asika's smile was unwavering. "Can you summon him up? He should be part of this conversation,"

  Mikayla nodded, focusing her Mana. Red lines grew from her Core Controller, drawing a framework that was filled with glassy black material. Spikes encrusted her arms, shoulders and helmet as the armour fully formed around her body.

  "We fight once more?!" Nocturnus sounded as eager for battle ash she'd come to expect from him.

  "No fighting, just talking," Looking around to confirm that they were still in Cliffwatch and there were no enemies present was enough for the bloodthirsty ghost to cool down.

  "Fine, fine, then why did you call me?" Nocturnus whispered in a voice that he thought was quiet enough for Asika not to hear him.

  "I asked her to!" Asika was only a little bit gleeful about proving him wrong.

  "Ah," Nocturnus increased his volume. "I suppose the ruse is up, after that battle with the Giant Roc,"

  "Yeah, I know exactly who and what you are. Didn't say anything sooner because it wasn't a good time, but we gotta clear the air before we head off to Cloudscraper Academy," the faerie explained.

  "Are you going to take him away?" Mikayla braced herself.

  "Huh? Oh, no, no way," Asika brushed the accusation off, and Mikayla sighed in relief. She didn't like the prospect of being forced to take a side between her friends.

  "But aren't sapient mind imprints illegal?" Keldryn questioned.

  Asika's smile slipped a bit. "Well, yeah. But that's by mortal law. I'm a moderator for the Cosmic Scales, it's outside my jurisdiction," she reminded them. "Uh, not that I'd arrest you either way!"

  "Good to hear," Keldryn dryly interjected.

  Asika waved him off with jazz hands. "Buuuuut, yeah. There are actually two separate problems. The first is that sapient mind imprints as a whole are illegal, and the second is that you are Nocturnus Virralis, the Black Traitor,"

  The other three were momentarily thrown by the casualness with which she threw out the damning epithet. "What would you recommend, Moderator?" Nocturnus solemnly asked.

  Screens flickered out from Asika's fingers, depicting a cartoon castle and the Black Knight walking into it. "First off, do your very best not to let anyone know about Nocturnus at all,"

  ". . well, duh," Mikayla raised an eyebrow.

  She said that, but it was depressing in a way to have that fear confirmed. She'd half hoped that Keldryn had been overestimating the prohibition on sapient mind imprints, but if anything it sounded like he'd undersold it.

  Asika chuckled a bit. "Yeah, I know, sounds obvious. But it's still worth a try. We all always hope the first line of defence is enough, right?"

  "It never is," Nocturnus pointed out.

  "Ehe, yeeeeeah," the faerie shrugged a bit. "The second line of defence is that you know me. Most people don't know much about what faeries can do, so you can pass yourself off as a sort of semi-sentient combat teaching program that I created to help Mikayla learn how to fight,"

  "Can you do that?" Mikayla asked, surprised.

  "It's a real thing, if that's what you're asking, but it's not portable and therefore not in mass production," Asika explained. "But I wouldn't expect any non-faeries to know that. As long as you pretend to not be a person, plenty of people will buy that,"

  "I shall do my very best to avoid suffering that humiliation," Nocturnus groused.

  "Ehe, you're gonna hate this next one then," Asika nervously giggled.

  "Oh?"

  "If pretending to be a combat assistant doesn't work, the next thing to try is to pretend to be someone else. There'll be a lot of interest in Nocturnus Virralis, the Black Traitor, back from the dead. Less interest in Johnny Swordswinger, a Guardsman no one's ever heard of from the middle of nowhere who wasn't smart enough to recognise an illegally tampered Armour Core and is paying the price for it,"

  Nocturnus quietly fumed. Mikayla wasn't surprised that the idea of forsaking his name, tainted though it was, didn't sit well with him. He was too proud for that.

  Asika recognised his hesitance and ploughed onwards. "I mean it. If you present yourselves as both being hapless victims of circumstance, they might let you stay together. The main benefit of sapient mind imprints is preserving knowledge. If you can convince them that you don't know anything interesting, just enough to teach Mikayla swordplay, there's a decent chance they'll decide you're just not worth the hassle. Often the people enforcing the law are a lot more willing to bend than the law itself,"

  Nocturnus still offered nothing but a faint and frustrated whine.

  Sensing a need to change the topic, Mikayla ploughed onwards. "Hey, I've been wondering for a while and Keldryn didn't know. Why are sapient mind imprints illegal, anyway? Apparently something bad happens with them?" she asked.

  "Beats me. Not something I've done research into," Asika shrugged apologetically.

  "Gotcha, thanks," Mikayla sighed. "Well, it's a good plan. I think so, at least,"

  "I don't disagree. I just don't like it," Nocturnus sighed. "Nonetheless. Thank you,"

  "Hey, no prob!" Asika beamed.

  Something else occurred to Mikayla. "Should we talk about the demigod thing too, while we're on the topic of secrets?"

  Asika's smile completely vanished for the first time. "Definitely don't let anyone find out about that, unless it's a matter of mortal peril. Don't talk about it, don't use it, just pretend it doesn't exist. With Nocturnus, the worst that could happen is having him confiscated and maybe a minor criminal charge for protecting him. But being the Inheritor of the Rainbow Ouroboros will get you killed. It's more trouble than it's worth, by a thousand times. There are hundreds of wannabes who wouldn't think twice about assassinating you to strip the divine essence from your bones. Ideally we don't want anyone to find out about it until you're at least Level 60. That's probably too optimistic but worth a shot,"

  Mikayla bit her lip. "Yeah. I kinda guessed. It . . it's a really powerful trump card, isn't it? Being able to become Black Knight Duplex or Triplex. My level more than tripled when we were all combined together. But that's way too overt,"

  "It is," Keldryn agreed.

  Asika snapped her fingers. "But that reminds me! Even if we're keeping it hush-hush, it's better to be prepared. Better to let people find out than get killed, yeah? And to that end," she gestured at Keldryn, "you should start worshipping her!"

  They both stared at the faerie in confusion. "I should what?" Keldryn blinked.

  "Whoa, hang on, I'm not gonna make my friends worship me," Mikayla shook her head. "I'm not trying to start a cult or anything!"

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  "Faith Points," Asika reminded them.

  "Faith Points?" Mikayla repeated.

  [YOUR CURRENT FAITH POINT TOTAL IS: 3,223.]

  She read the notification, and Asika nodded. "That's a pretty small number but enough to use if you're in mortal peril. They're like Mana or Stamina, you use them up when doing Blessings or using Divine Techniques. And they get regenerated by people worshipping or praying to you. If Keldryn remembers to say something like 'Praise Mikayla' once a day, it'll help you build up a stash for a rainy day,"

  "I see," Mikayla looked back through her notification logs. "I've already used seven hundred points during those two fights. That was one-fifth of my starting total," she winced.

  "Eh, yeah, the Faith Points system is balanced around having hundreds or thousands of people worshipping you. Even a minor local god should regenerate that much in a day," the Moderator clarified. "It won't be much, but it's better than nothing,"

  "Not a problem. Praise Mikayla," Keldryn agreed.

  [FAITH POINTS: 3,223 > 3,224]

  "Oh, that worked!"

  "Is it possible for me to contribute?" Nocturnus rumbled.

  "Uh. Probably not. Try it?" Asika shrugged a bit.

  "Praise Mikayla,"

  Nothing happened.

  "Guess that's a bust," Mikayla sighed. "I appreciate the thought, Nocty. Though, it's not like it'll really matter. Not when the only thing I can do with them is the Blessing of Teamwork," As much as the Blessing offered phenomenal power, it wasn't something to do on a whim.

  Conflict played out across Asika's face, then she sighed. "I really shouldn't be offering this given what I just said, but it is not right that the only demigod thing you can do is the Blessing of Teamwork. You should at least have access to Divine Techniques, even if only as last-resort trump cards. Soooooo," Her smile returned, face filling with excitement. "If you want, I can do some poking around in the Cosmic Isles' Archives. See if I can find your missing Divine Techniques! Or even make some new ones!"

  Mikayla's eyebrows shot up. "That would be amazing,"

  "Totes, but keep in mind what I just said about keeping it secret. It's one thing to say that you got gifted Flawless Techniques from a faerie, that's unusual but no biggie. But if and when you have Divine Techniques to play with, you're gonna need to have the self-control not to use them unless you're desperate,"

  A firm nod was her response. "I can manage. I'm not that dumb," Mikayla assured her. "Besides, that's assuming you can find anything in the first place - and, really, don't put yourself to too much trouble on my account. You've already done so much for me, I couldn't -" Mikayla started, but trailed off when Asika turned a wide smile on her.

  "You kidding? You're giving me a sanctioned excuse to play with the Demigod System, to do maintenance on the Demigod System. Maybe even improve it! Do you know how many fairies would kill for a chance to do that? No way am I passing that up!"

  "Oh yeah?" Mikayla managed to chuckle a bit. "In that case, I'll leave it to you to track down these missing Demigod Techniques. Or make new ones," She paused. "Though, wait, how will you get them to me? Are you going to come to this school with me?"

  Asika sighed, shaking her head. "Can't, sorry. I gotta go home and report in. Keep doing my job. But I do have an idea! Let me see that 'phone' thing of yours?"

  "Huh?" Mikayla blinked, but obliged, fishing the nonfunctional piece of modern technology out of her pocket.

  Asika gripped it in both hands, and System screens played across it, words blurring around the device too fast for Mikayla to read.

  Then, miracle of miracles, the screen lit up.

  "Huh, interesting. It runs on lightning? That might be a problem . . eh, it'll be fine, just learn a lightning Technique or something so you can keep it charged," Asika assured her.

  Mikayla considered that; hadn't she heard that feeding unregulated electricity into a device was more likely to destroy it than charge it? But then she remembered the powerboard, laptop and generator she'd managed to salvage from the container ship a week ago. Even if she couldn't get the generator to work, there'd surely be enough regulation across that setup for her to feed magic electricity into the powerboard and charge both the laptop and phone from it. It would be fine.

  While she'd been mulling that over, Asika had been flicking System screens into her phone, until finally turning it around and presenting it to its owner. Accepting it, Mikayla immediately saw that there was a new app on its screen.

  "I love this thing. It's like a whole Ataraxia Node in your pocket. R&D are totally gonna freak out when they see these schematics," Asika murmured. "Also, here! I'm not allowed to directly give you permanent access to a moderator's System functions, but this is a workaround. Now we can send each other Direct Messages through your phone!"

  Mikayla blinked. "So . . I can text you?"

  "Oh. That, uh, that's already a thing, then?" Asika puffed out her cheeks. "Well, can your texts do this?" She tapped on the app, and it came up with two icons, a speck bubble and a camera lens. Tapping the lens brought up what looked like a slightly modified camera app.

  "My phone also already takes photographs," Mikayla teased.

  Asika held it up backwards and snapped a picture of herself, and a blue box appeared in Mikayla's vision.

  [ASIKA - LEVEL 33 - FAERIE - JUNIOR SYSTEM MODERATOR]

  "I'm not allowed to let you keep the super-Identify that I gave you as a temp-mod privilege while we were breaking out. But this is just as good, and it'll work without needing to be in range of an Ataraxia Node, too," Asika explained.

  Mikayla's eyes widened. "That is awesome. Uh, right? I've never actually had a chance to use the normal Identify, I don't know how overpowered this is or what the upgrades are," she reminded the faerie.

  "Normal Identifies only give you names, unless it's a monster or a living being who's injured you. It's a safeguard. Moderator Identifies work on everything and everyone, and give you extra details too," Asika summarised.

  "A safeguard?" Mikayla raised a questioning eyebrow.

  "Yeah, that's a whole thing. For other sapients, it's to disincentivise attacking people just because they're weaker than you, because they might actually be much stronger. Y'know?"

  "Yeah, I guess that makes sense," Mikayla chuckled, hugging the faerie. "Thanks, Asika. That's awesome. And it'll be great to be able to keep in touch while I'm off at school and you're flying all over the country to do Moderator work,"

  "Yeppers, my pleasure!" Asika returned the hug, squeezing and bouncing in place. "And I trust you with that. You don't seem like the kind of person who would take advantage of someone being weaker than you. Also, odds are that literally everyone is stronger than you where you're going, anyway,"

  "Ah, yeah, great," Mikayla grimaced. That was reassuring.

  "Chin up! You'll get lots of levels! Just keep killing stuff!"

  "I guess . ."