"Uh... Ethan?"
Ahkelios is talking to , 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 claid.
There's almost a resonant factor between the two. I can feel sothing that isn't quite Firmant growing and bubbling between my Inspirations and the stone. A faint but distinct pop in my ears almost disorients , and I shake my head, trying to focus. There's sothing here. Sothing lying in the space between Inspiration and Firmant, 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 ti 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 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 sothing I'm sensing here that's very real. Whatever it is, that space between—my intuition tells I need to understand it, that there's so fundantal secret about Firmant I can discern if I listen to its whispers.
Or maybe that's just the Hunger Firmant speaking to , and I'm not as unaffected as I think.
"I'm probably okay," I and. "Keep an eye on . I don't want to lose myself to this thing."
Ahkelios gives 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 before the stone's Firmant has a chance to take 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 developnt.
But I can't silence the part of my brain that insists that there's sothing 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 Firmant doing exactly the sa thing. The Accelerator hovers around, semi-active but not interfering with this process.
I go over what I understand about Inspirations.
They're so sort of modification perford directly on 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 sothing about my core that's fundantally altered by these changes, and whatever these alterations are, they allow to do things that seem almost... orthogonal to what normal Firmant is capable of.
They're modifiers. When I activate them, they change the way Firmant is processed, causing a skill to erge with new effects or allowing to do new things with my skills. The All-Seeing Eye allows to see the intricacies of them and rge them, for example—
I almost smack myself in exasperation when I realize what I'm missing.
If I'm trying to understand an invisible phenonon created by the interaction between Inspiration and Firmant, then the All-Seeing Eye is perfect for it. Especially in combination with Firmant Sight.
Firmant Sight alone might not be able to do it, but...
All-Seeing Eye. Firmant Sight.
Darkness bubbles into existence in front of .
Hunger Firmant isn't black, exactly. It's closer to a gray-brown nothing, the kind of color you might paint on sothing you'd rather forget. There's an intensity to it, though, likely from the sheer grade of this imbuent stone—this Hunger Firmant is powerful. It pulls at everything around it, like it wants nothing more than to beco sothing aningful.
Maybe that's what Hunger Firmant is.
The Void Inspiration, anwhile, reaches out with sothing that isn't quite Firmant. I don't have a good word for it. It's pulling on the Hunger Firmant with the idea of need and want, like a conceptual force capable of affecting the very nature of Firmant. I suppose that's how it modifies my skills and makes them devour Firmant—it makes them eager to consu other forms of Firmant.
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Or, when it's attacking Whisper's Firmant, it's... making the Firmant consu itself?
I'm not sure how to feel about that one.
It's different with the Hunger Firmant, though. Maybe it's because the Void Inspiration senses a kindred spirit, or maybe Hunger is just too similar already to what the Void Inspiration can do. Either way, the Inspiration's attempt to change or consu the Hunger Firmant just doesn't stick.
And instead, sothing grows between them. It's like an unexpected runaway chemical reaction. Between the two is a force that's neither Firmant nor Concept—like the clash of the two has stripped away the outer shell of what these powers pretend to be and unveiled sothing underneath.
It feels like... direction. Like intent.
Perhaps more alarming, it feels like soone else's intent.
The mont I grasp that—the mont I recognize that—it recognizes , too. I feel an imnse weight pressing down on . It happens for just a fraction of a second, but in that fraction of a second it feels like I'm being made to hold up a mountain. If the power difference between myself and the Hestian Trialgoers is a chasm, then what I've caught a glimpse of here is... it's an abyss. An ocean's worth of water wouldn't be enough to define the sheer gulf between and whoever or whatever this is.
"Ethan? Ethan!" Ahkelios is calling out to , panicked. I slowly co to the realization that I'm on my hands and knees on the floor, hyperventilating, sweat pouring down my skin and my fingernails bloody from digging into the ground. It takes a mont to shake off the fugue—I'm not sure what happened, but there's a pervading sense of nausea and an ache present in my body that wasn't there before.
"I think... I think I just looked at sothing I shouldn't have." I grimace, pushing myself back into a sitting position on the ground; when I go to wipe the sweat off my nose, my hand cos away bloody.
"That happened because you looked at sothing?!" Ahkelios demanded.
"I think so." I frown. The mory of what I was able to see is already slipping away—my mind can't seem to hold on to it. More specifically, the more I try to rember it, the more my mory of it seems to fade... so I quickly shove whatever happened to the back of my mind.
It might be important later, which ans for now, I need to very carefully not think about it.
"I can't talk about it," I say, before Ahkelios or any of the others present can question . "But I think I can perform the imbuent now."
I grasp the stone. The Void Inspiration and Accelerator both are quiet—whatever I just did seems to have silenced them, at least for now. The Void in particular feels almost like it's trying to hide within my soul; I can feel it shaking, like it's afraid of whatever it is I just saw.
That's worrying in and of itself. That thing usually has only one emotion, and it's hunger.
The stone and its Hunger Firmant, on the other hand, seem fortunately entirely unaffected, maybe because neither of them are connected to the way my Inspirations are. I call on Hueshift, feeling its Firmant flowing through and into the stone as I begin the imbuent process—
[ New feature unlocked! Thanks to your dedication to understanding the process of imbuent, you may now perform imbuent using the Interface. To use it, open the imbuent window, then select an input skill and target item. Please note that once the imbuent 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 about it; interrupting any kind of imbuent feels like a recipe for a bad ti, especially considering the amount of Firmant that's presumably used for it at higher levels of the skill. What concerns , however, is the timing.
I've been working on understanding imbuent for a while now. If what the Interface says is true and this unlock only happened because I achieved so requisite level of understanding, then it should have triggered in tandem with whatever discovery allowed to cross that threshold.
Instead, it's happening now. At the exact sa ti I feel like I've discovered sothing significant about the nature of Firmant and Inspirations. The timing of it feels far too convenient—almost like it's trying to distract .
At the sa ti, 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 again. It wouldn't be the first ti 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 imbuent. Maybe there's sothing there that the Integrators don't want us to know. I make the promise to myself that I'm not going to abandon manual imbuent. 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 work around having to interact directly with this Hunger-based Firmant.
"Hey, Ahkelios," I say out loud. "Did you ever unlock an imbuent feature in your Interface?"
Ahkelios gives a strange look. "That's a thing?" he asks.
"Apparently." I shrug. I'm not about to complain. I tap ntally on the Interface, bringing up the imbuent window and selecting both Hueshift and the Abyssal Hunger stone.
[ Please confirm the imbuent of (Hueshift, Rank B) into (Abyssal Hunger Imbuent Stone, Rank S). ]
Confird.
[ Comncing imbuent. ]
Firmant begins to gather and surge. I grin to myself, just a little bit self-satisfied, and then activate Firmant Sight.
I'm not sure if the Integrators want to hamper my ability to learn imbuent.
But if that's their goal, then maybe they shouldn't have provided with a tool that will let learn exactly how they do it.
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