Chapter 1748

Chapter 1748

Randidly stood next to the grand Engraving they had created on the moon above Expira and allowed the whole of twenty levels of the Hierarchy of Burden’s electromagnetic radiation to ravage him. This time, it wasn’t as a training exercise; instead, Randidly had found that the electricity was excellent at superheating his metal left arm.

They had chosen the arm because Neveah’s experiments revealed that the Engraving affected a rather large area; extrapolating from her earlier patterns, this Engraving would take up the same amount of size as a small city. Part of the safety constructs removed included a pattern that would tie the refining process solely to Randidly. The mechanism would have been useful, but Neveah insisted that for the refinement, magnification was more important. And the safety construct took up too much space.

So now Randidly stood on the grey stone of the atmosphere less celestial body, his toes digging into moondust. Ideally, the Engraving wouldn’t be so large that anyone would notice on Expira.

When the conductive metal of his arm became malleable, he then ceased using the Fatepiece and wrought some small adjustments to his fingers and upper arm along the limb, to slightly repair the damage he had inflicted in his earlier grief. In the absolute landslide of tasks that he needed to address, remaking his metal arm had somehow fallen through the cracks.

Neveah walked up next to him, having walked the circuit of the giant working and scrutinized every inch of the Engraving. She said to Randidly. “I’ve set up a broader Engraving around this area to maintain a semblance of an atmosphere. You don’t typically need to breathe, but I’m unsure how long this process will take; we might as well prepare for the worst. There will be a significant amount of energy flowing through your body due to the formation, but it isn’t even half of what your Fatepiece can produce in the first layer. I’ll be supplying the energy, so your focus will be entirely on your work. Do you need anything else before you begin?”

Randidly shook his head, but inwardly he spoke to himself to calm his impatience. You are here to learn how to improve images. Mastering that skill will take you closer to your goal of getting revenge on Commandant Wick. Besides, you owe Claudette. When you are ready to improve your Nether Core, the materials she provided will be invaluable.

Influence +42!

Neveah wandered off, doing some last-minute projections in her head. Randidly grinned across the Engraving at Claudette. She stood above five hundred meters away from him, in the central portion of the Engraving. He made sure to exaggerate his words, so she could read his lips. “What about you, are you ready?”

“You weren’t lying about four days,” Claudette shook her head. But now that he knew what he was looking for, her raw nerves were obvious to Randidly’s senses. She shrugged. “I wish I had more time to prepare... but we don’t, do we? To finish, we need to begin. So, let’s just begin. You’ll be doing most of the work anyway. I’m just... your malleable clay. Don’t take advantage of me, Mr. Ghosthound.”

Randidly didn’t bother to acknowledge the combination of playfulness and genuine fear in Claudette’s final sentence; he knew she only took this gamble because she had no choice. He looked to Neveah. “Alright then. Let’s begin.”

Neveah raised her slender arms, spots of light gleaming from her fingers. Randidly felt her channeling a huge amount of raw Aether through his body and into the Engraving. The thick lines on the grey ground began to release waves of golden light. The desolate surface of the moon bloomed in front of him like a field of sunflowers.

That golden light started at the edges and steadily seeped inward, like cold syrup running back up to the top of a mound of pancakes. Soon the edges had turned blinding and the area around Claudette’s body began to crackle with power. Randidly heard her release a shuddering breath and then her eyes fluttered and shut. After one more pulse of power, the whole Engraving flashed and suddenly a silvery dome stood in front of Randidly. Swirls of black lines spun and swam through the silver surface.

Yet what instantly seized his attention was the waves of raw energy radiating off of this thing.

Randidly turned to Neveah and raised his eyebrows. She shrugged. “Part of the reason that this isn’t a more common method of improving an image is how much raw Aether is required to sustain the expansion and magnification. I didn’t mention this to Claudette... but a lot of compromises were made in the typical orthodox constructs to lower the cost of the refinement. As a courtesy, I arranged the Engraving so it cut no corners; she probably is experiencing the most lavish image refinement in the history of the Nexus.”

“Thanks, Neveah.” Randidly nodded several times to reassure himself. “Now I just... need to help her take advantage of this opportunity.”

Congratulations! Your Skill Conviction of the Celestial Cataclysm (T) has grown to Level 483!

Once Randidly had drawn the clouds, he spent quite a bit of time fussing with the details of their look and shape. He did not skimp on the reality of the clouds. Broadly, Claudette Beigon’s image centered around a sword from ice so potent that it had destroyed a world. Being sheathed into the ground was enough for this sword to slowly smother the life from the surface of the planet. A portion of that environmental destruction was related to weather.

The clouds should be distant and looming, but not so aggressive that you feel like a storm is rolling in quickly. The doom this sword brings is slow and irresistible. Randidly decided. He put his hands on his hips and created a heavy cloud bank that hung above the horizon in every direction. He even added a few distant booms of thunder, to add to the immersion.

Then Randidly stopped to scratch his head. He started to have a few doubts as he looked at the heavy clods. “This influence is easy to abuse. The guide had been making positive noises, but I really just-”

Randidly stopped himself and huffed out a breath. This might be his first time working through another person’s image, but he knew his own. Besides, the details he currently toyed with were small in the whole of Claudette; that much was clear by the sheer size of this place.

Randidly spun around, but there were no distinguishing characteristics. He could only see clouds and plains, driven by a chill wind.

He glanced at the guide spirit. “Do you know the way to the core of your image?”

Rather than humming, one of the guide’s arms moved. However, the thing moved only one joint at a time. So its finger extended, its wrist straightened, its elbow stretched, and then finally its shoulder lifted the arm and pointed in a certain direction. Randidly shook his head and tried not to think about how creepy the guide was going to be for however long this project took.

Then he rolled his shoulders and began to seriously arrange the air currents of this place. Weather wasn’t just isolated events, it was a grand, interlocking pattern.

Congratulations! Your Skill Grand Perspective (R) has grown to Level 49!

Congratulations! Your Skill Conviction of the Celestial Cataclysm (T) has grown to Level 484!

...

Congratulations! Your Skill Grand Perspective (R) has grown to Level 71!

After upping the chill factor and making the wind come in a constant howl rather than occasional gusts, Randidly sighed. He suddenly felt the enormity of the task in front of him. Working with the details made him realize that there probably would not be any one sign to reveal he had succeeded, either. Randidly glanced over his shoulder at the floating guide. Perhaps the Nether Ritual to rip out the Nexus’s observation Aether constructs would have been the quicker project.

“Too late now,” Randidly said aloud. To his surprise, ghost Claudette hummed its agreement. He glanced at his wide and gloomy mouth before glancing away. He could already feel his mental strength ebbing, but he didn’t intend to take a break now. Randidly was only just building up some momentum. But he had to admit to himself that the best way to do this... was to use his secret weapon.

Randidly pulled out the Visage of Obsession and squeezed the thick canvas between his fingers for several seconds. Then he unrolled the mysterious painting and stared down at what was on the page.