Chapter 111: Book 2: Thank You For Using Whispersink

Chapter 111: Book 2: Thank You For Using Whispersink

"Uh... Ethan?"

Ahkelios is talking to me, I think. I'm not sure. I haven't looked away from the stone yet. I can feel the Void Inspiration calling out to it—not just the Void, actually. The Accelerator is stirring, too. The Void's 'sister', or so it claimed.

There's almost a resonant factor between the two. I can feel something that isn't quite Firmament growing and bubbling between my Inspirations and the stone. A faint but distinct pop in my ears almost disorients me, and I shake my head, trying to focus. There's something here. Something lying in the space between Inspiration and Firmament, pulling at my senses, demanding all of my attention.

The stone is beautiful. There's a speckled glow in it that looks almost like stardust. Every time the lighting shifts or changes, a new nebula spawns in the abyssal black of the stone.

I can feel what it's trying to do. It's trying to appeal to my Hunger.

The only problem with that plan is that there's at least one thing inside me that's far hungrier than I am.

"I'm okay," I tell Ahkelios, though I don't take my eyes off the stone. Even if the majority of the stone's influence is being shunted off to my Void Inspiration, there's something I'm sensing here that's very real. Whatever it is, that space between—my intuition tells me I need to understand it, that there's some fundamental secret about Firmament I can discern if I listen to its whispers.

Or maybe that's just the Hunger Firmament speaking to me, and I'm not as unaffected as I think.

"I'm probably okay," I amend. "Keep an eye on me. I don't want to lose myself to this thing."

Ahkelios gives me a suspicious sort of look, folding his arms across his chest, but I ignore him. That warning should be good enough. In the absolute worst case scenario, he can kill me before the stone's Firmament has a chance to take me over—no need to worry about losing multiple loops to it then.

I am distantly aware that being even more cavalier about my deaths are most likely not a positive development.

But I can't silence the part of my brain that insists that there's something here. I reach out with my senses, trying to understand what's happening between my Inspirations and the stone. I can feel the Void Inspiration trying to reach out, trying to take—and I can feel the Hunger Firmament doing exactly the same thing. The Accelerator hovers around, semi-active but not interfering with this process.

I go over what I understand about Inspirations.

They're some sort of modification performed directly on me by an Integrator. Gheraa's made this clear with his overly dramatic installations of the various Inspirations I've earned, from shoving an eye in place of my actual eye for the All-Seeing Eye to the Aspect of Regrowth Inspiration tearing its way into my body. They aren't as physical as he makes it seem, but there is something about my core that's fundamentally altered by these changes, and whatever these alterations are, they allow me to do things that seem almost... orthogonal to what normal Firmament is capable of.

They're modifiers. When I activate them, they change the way Firmament is processed, causing a skill to emerge with new effects or allowing me to do new things with my skills. The All-Seeing Eye allows me to see the intricacies of them and merge them, for example—

I almost smack myself in exasperation when I realize what I'm missing.

If I'm trying to understand an invisible phenomenon created by the interaction between Inspiration and Firmament, then the All-Seeing Eye is perfect for it. Especially in combination with Firmament Sight.

Firmament Sight alone might not be able to do it, but...

All-Seeing Eye. Firmament Sight.

Darkness bubbles into existence in front of me.

[ New feature unlocked! Thanks to your dedication to understanding the process of imbuement, you may now perform imbuement using the Interface. To use it, open the imbuement window, then select an input skill and target item. Please note that once the imbuement process begins, it cannot be interrupted. Attempting to halt or alter the process may result in personal injury. ]

I frown again.

My first instinct isn't interest—it's suspicion. The warning isn't what bothers me about it; interrupting any kind of imbuement feels like a recipe for a bad time, especially considering the amount of Firmament that's presumably used for it at higher levels of the skill. What concerns me, however, is the timing.

I've been working on understanding imbuement for a while now. If what the Interface says is true and this unlock only happened because I achieved some requisite level of understanding, then it should have triggered in tandem with whatever discovery allowed me to cross that threshold.

Instead, it's happening now. At the exact same time I feel like I've discovered something significant about the nature of Firmament and Inspirations. The timing of it feels far too convenient—almost like it's trying to distract me.

At the same time, I can't deny that it's a useful unlock. And I do need to not think about what I've just discovered.

Who knows. Maybe Gheraa's interfering to help me again. It wouldn't be the first time he's done it.

There's a third possibility here—the possibility that this feature exists so that we Trialgoers don't dive any deeper into the secrets of imbuement. Maybe there's something there that the Integrators don't want us to know. I make the promise to myself that I'm not going to abandon manual imbuement. For one thing, Virin's still going to need my help, and for another, I don't trust the Interface enough to trust that this isn't a feature that will hamper my progress in the long run.

For now, though?

It is useful. And it lets me work around having to interact directly with this Hunger-based Firmament.

"Hey, Ahkelios," I say out loud. "Did you ever unlock an imbuement feature in your Interface?"

Ahkelios gives me a strange look. "That's a thing?" he asks.

"Apparently." I shrug. I'm not about to complain. I tap mentally on the Interface, bringing up the imbuement window and selecting both Hueshift and the Abyssal Hunger stone.

[ Please confirm the imbuement of (Hueshift, Rank B) into (Abyssal Hunger Imbuement Stone, Rank S). ]

Confirmed.

[ Commencing imbuement. ]

Firmament begins to gather and surge. I grin to myself, just a little bit self-satisfied, and then activate Firmament Sight.

I'm not sure if the Integrators want to hamper my ability to learn imbuement.

But if that's their goal, then maybe they shouldn't have provided me with a tool that will let me learn exactly how they do it.