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The Azure Phoenix Ascendant is a Zenith caste solar exalted. His main strengths are his incredible grasp of first age technologies and his reality-bending proficiency with shaping the Wyld.
I grew up in Nexus as the son of a middling scavenger lord whose business was more in reselling and occasionally fixing artifacts than actually acquiring them. I messed around with all sorts of broken trinkets and gadgets when I was younger, but eventually, in a fit of rebelliousness, ran off to become a soldier. As Lookshy was the preeminent military in the region, I went there. They were less than welcoming to an outsider, especially from Nexus. I spent a few months tinkering, then nearly a year working as a journeyman blacksmith (having learned enough from my father to fake a previous apprenticeship). I spent considerably less time than might be expected proving myself, ironically due to utter incompetence at manipulating people: After an especially inept attempt to bribe a recruiter, I was able to convince him through sheer personal charisma that I wanted to serve. It didn't hurt that I was clearly too incompetent to have ulterior motives.
I served without especial distinction through my first tour (where I served as heavy infantry) but on the second, Thorns invaded. I fought competently, and was exceptionally inspirational, so was quickly promoted to Gochei, however my work in organization left something to be desired. My Fang was present at Mishaka, and distinguished ourselves, breaking through enemy lines on six separate occasions and twice disabling siege weapons as a result, while taking only a single casualty ourselves. Only one man walked away whole though, and it wasn't me. I lost my right hand at the wrist, making me no longer qualified for active duty. Had I been able bodied, I could have had my pick of assignments, probably starting with officer training. Instead, I went to a hospital, received a medal and a hook, and was sent to the supply division to finish out my tour. At the end of the year, many of the officers and a few of the Nitei from Mishaka were raised to citizens. Everyone in my Fang was raised.
When my second term ended, I wasn't sure what else to do, so I re-enlisted for a third term. I rose to Shonai, though it was for having done well before, not because I'd learned organization in the interim. It was barely more than an honorary title; I was responsible for watching the gunzosha armor for new trainees (new as in recently implanted). The four members of my Fang in good enough condition to stay on active duty ended up as officers. I suspect my posting had more to do with that than anything else. What happened next was that after a month or so, the suits started working better than they had previously, and had much lower maintenance requirements. I was technically allowed to touch the suits, but had had it explained to me that I should really refrain from doing anything other than sit in my office and count beans (some prankster later left me a jar of lentils on my desk. It contained 1,378 lentils). As such, I hid that I was playing around with the suits until I was actually ousted by a sort of sting operation. Lookshy Officers are strict, not stupid though, so I was moved to being a sorcerer-engineer very quickly, and my rank carried over. This let me play with all sorts of cool toys. In short everything was dandy.
I still wanted to soldier though, and had managed to become as skilled with my remaining hand as I had been with two. I had an edge on nearly every mortal at practice, and was on an even footing with dragon-blooded. When Lookshy sent an expedition to Denandsor, I was a natural choice for field work, and far more eager to go than most of the other sorcerer-engineers. We had managed to get inside the walls entirely by iron discipline and sheer determination when everything fell apart. I can't recall anything clearly between walking into the city and waking up much further south and a good deal shinier (exalted) a few weeks later. I have confused memories of the entire expedition fighting several of the city's guardians, of falling through a glass roof (face first), and of seeing a sort of Biomagitech humanoid in a partially assembled state. My artifact hand is not the same one I went into the city with; it is far, far more sophisticated. It is also only partially working now, but is still as dexterous and strong as my original hand ever was. My face has several large scars, the most noticeable going through my left eye. That artifact is so well made, it actually took me three days to notice that it wasn't my original eye. It does sometimes glow a light blue color. At first, it required constant fiddling to keep it operating, but now it's fairly stable. Like my hand though, it is not fully functional and there is at least one major chunk of the workings that I haven't figured out a purpose for yet.
What I have been doing is traveling slowly toward Chiaroscuro to look for answers there. My path has been somewhat meandering, and whenever I run out of resources, I find a medium to large city and do Magitech repair work for a few months or years. This usually gets me resources 5, but no way to carry away more than resources 3 or so. Also, reliably fixing things has put my services in demand to an unhealthy degree, such that I am likely to have polite but very firm invitations to the center of government in any capitol. Also, while each nation has tried to keep my presence unmentioned, the Realm's information sources are good. If the empress hadn't disappeared when she did, there likely would have been a Wild Hunt dispatched. As it always stood, they received rumors, but never quite solid enough to act on.
I am infuriated by deliberately stupid or inefficient people, who drive me towards limit break. (Heart of Flint)