What was the golden knight?
Created by the first Vale family head, it was a technique that allowed him to match the monsters of his time.
Although not a Transcendent rank, the golden knight allowed an Ascended rank to match one even if only in SE control.
Aleric had been an Ascended at the peak of his era, powerful by any reasonable standard, yet utterly outclassed by Transcendent beings.
He learned that truth the hard way during the war to drive back the Eclipsed, when he faced a Tier 5 entity and survived only because someone else died buying him time.
It was then that he came to a realization which he had been avoiding, compared to those monsters, he was dead weight.
He understood then that no amount of raw SE would let an Ascended cross that gap. The difference wasn't power, it was control.
So he built a technique that didn't increase SE, but perfected its usage.
