"It's just sothing the Interface does," Gheraa says, grimacing. "I don't have a good answer for you there. We think it has sothing to do with how the Interface draws from past Trialgoers as a template for new features or implentations—in the sa way, it probably draws on people connected with it to create Remnants. Or monsters, if you will."
I think for a mont. "But that's not true for all monsters, right?" I say. "Like the monsters in the Fracture."
The ones Guard helped to kill. I rember him fighting with us, and I'm beginning to wonder if there was anything I missed in that fight. Was there any point in which he'd tried to communicate his situation to ? Would I have noticed? There were those flashes of not-purple within his Firmant, the monts in which prismatic power shone through the lavender fog swirling in his chest. Now that I know the situation he's in, I'm guessing those were glimpses of his true Firmant shining through Whisper's.
My fists tighten. I should have realized what that ant sooner.
"Not all monsters are Remnants, but all Remnants are monsters," Gheraa agrees, unaware of my thoughts. "The Interface labels and assigns a difficulty rating to anything you fight, be it creature, Remnant, or person. That difficulty rating is applied as a modifier to the credits you earn. But that's the slower thod of growth. The faster one is to do what your friend is doing—to take their Firmant and make it your own.
"But even there, there are downsides." Gheraa draws his cloak around himself and rests his chin in his hands, staring at . "For one thing, anyone you do that to you would permanently remove from the loop—kill, in other words. For another, it's not that easy to control soone else's Firmant. Ahkelios can do it because his Remnants are based on him; all he has to do is remind that Firmant that it belongs to him. Absorbing soone else's Firmant is a different story altogether. I know of Integrators that have permanently mutated and changed because they attempted this process."
"That doesn't sound like an option, then," I say. Anything like that will carry over between loops—I'm not going to be able to reverse ti to escape the consequences of my own actions. I do, however, ntally file away the possibility of permanently removing people from the loop. It's not sothing I'd do under most circumstances, but...
The Hestian Trialgoers are a different story. If I let them reset, they're going to find new ways to co after , and they'll know my tricks. I'm not going to try to absorb them, but that doesn't an I can't find a way to permanently damage their Firmant in so way.
It occurs to that that thought is cold. Colder than I'm used to. Colder than I'd want to get used to.
And yet the harm that Whisper's done—the disregard that she's shown for others, not to ntion everything I've heard about Naru, about Teluwat...
"You have a third thod?" I ask, trying to hide the nature of my thoughts. Gheraa stares at for a long mont but chooses not to ask, for which I'm grateful.
"It's related to the second," Gheraa says. "Absorbing the Firmant of any living thing is difficult and dangerous. But there's plenty of Firmant around you all the ti, and most of it doesn't belong to anyone. Ambient Firmant of all types."
I blink and stare at Gheraa for a mont. "...You want to just absorb the Firmant that's floating around in the air?" I ask. "First of all, I refuse to believe that no one except the Integrators has tried this."
"You haven't tried it," Gheraa points out, amused.
"I've been kind of busy!"
"Well," he says. "You're not wrong. People have tried it, and they still do. Just because the Firmant doesn't belong to anyone doesn't an it's not still dangerous. Drawing in Firmant from your surroundings is known to cause all kinds of physical symptoms, including but not limited to having your organs turn into the elental Firmant you're trying to absorb."
"What."
"Soone's liver turned into fire once," Gheraa explains, a little too casually for my taste.
"Was it... your liver?"
"I don't have a liver."
"Great." I add a note to my ntal file about Gheraa to be a little cautious about my organs around him, since he doesn't seem to place much value in them. Maybe because he doesn't have any. "I assu you have a way to avoid that."
Gheraa looks at thoughtfully. "I do," he says. "You have an advantage a lot of others don't."
"The Interface?" I ask.
"!" he says, injecting too much cheer into his voice again. "And also the Interface, yes. You'd have to be willing to sacrifice a skill or two, though. Or more."
I frown in thought. That's not entirely out of the question—so of my skills operate pretty well together, but I have a few that are pretty redundant at this point. I might still use Triplestep, but it's technically objectively worse than Firestep and Accelerate. The only reason I still use it is because it's less of a strain on my Firmant and because it stacks with the others to a degree, but the speed advantage it provides as my ability with Firmant grows is starting to beco negligible.
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"How do you think skills work, Ethan?" Gheraa asks, drawing my attention again.
A test. The realization is more instinct than anything; he's looking at like he wants a specific answer. I roll the question around in my head, considering.
"I assud the Interface processes my Firmant and converts it into whatever effect the skill is supposed to have," I say slowly. "But that's not quite right, is it?"
Because I can feel the skills as they grow inside . It's like how the Void Inspiration has a presence within —my skills do, too, though they're a lot more subtle. They're most apparent when I'm using the All-Seeing Eye to combine them. The Interface plants sothing like a seed within that converts my Firmant into that of the skill's. Using the skill itself is then a matter of application; the Interface deals with the minutiae, and I decide on the target and power.
It's... actually not at all unlike the Firmant sink I've been working on. Co to think of it...
"That's why I can imbue things with skills," I mutter to myself. "I place a copy of the seed in it?"
"Close!" Gheraa says brightly. He seems proud of , for so reason. "Technically, most Interface skills are self-sufficient and fractal in nature; you can take any piece of their Firmant and regenerate the skill from it. But uh, you probably shouldn't try that, because most skills are incredibly dangerous if they're not regulated by the Interface."
I carefully avoid Gheraa's gaze. I'm definitely going to try it.
"...You're going to try it, aren't you," Gheraa says, resigned.
"You were saying sothing about absorbing Firmant?" I prompt, changing the subject. Gheraa sighs.
"You can destroy a skill and turn it into sothing to process ambient Firmant for you," he says. "The higher rank the skill, the better it gets at doing that. You'll still have to manually feed Firmant into the skill to make any real progress, but it speeds things up even if you don't. And those Firmant-conversion structures are essentially perfect for this process."
"And most Trialgoers don't do this, I take it. Even if they're told they can?"
"It's not exactly common knowledge, although a few people have figured it out. And I can't deny that we've... experinted." Gheraa seems hesitant to admit this. "But even most Trialgoers are reluctant to give up their skills."
"Skills are useful, but a phase-shift is even more so, if I understand them correctly."
"You'll be as strong as Naru with Tough Body alone if you manage to reach your third layer," Gheraa says. "He's a second-layer Trialgoer. Still stronger than you are, but you're catching up. Which he won't like. I've been trying to keep him away from you."
"Thanks," I say. I an it, too. Any kind of involvent with Naru is sothing I'd prefer to avoid, not because I'm afraid of him but because I'm pretty sure I'd end up trying to fight him. That's a ss that I don't have ti for at the mont.
Though I'm not entirely opposed to using a loop to ss with him if I do sohow find myself with the ti...
I shake myself free from those thoughts. "How would I do this, exactly?" I ask. "Convert a skill into sothing for absorbing Firmant."
The Integrator regards for a mont. "You can sense your Firmant now, can't you?" he asks. "You've reconnected with yourself."
"...Yes." There's nothing really happening, as far as I can tell. I'm still lying unconscious on the ground and Ahkelios is still sitting on my chest; Bimar seems to have found a seat nearby and is drumming her wings on it anxiously.
Teluwat's assault has lessened greatly. The Mind Vault probably won't be necessary for much longer.
"Then I want you to sense what I'm doing. Keep in mind I can only show you this once, because it will expend the rest of the Firmant I planted within you," Gheraa warns. "I'm guessing you don't want to forcibly end your loop."
"No." Teluwat's Firmant is manageable, at this point, and I think Gheraa can sense the sa thing. He studies for a mont, then shakes his head.
"Be careful," he says. His voice is suddenly soft. Sincere, even. It's so uncharacteristic of him it makes blink, but the expression he wears with it vanishes so quickly it feels like it was just my imagination. "And watch closely."
I feel Gheraa's Firmant surge. I see sothing manifest in front of him—Firmant of a type I haven't seen before, a brilliant blue-gold marble that's so dense with power that it warps the void around it. I can almost feel the Interface straining to contain the power that Gheraa's suddenly manifested.
At the sa ti, though, the golden lines in the Integrator's skin fade to white, and the deep blue begins to dull into an empty gray. Gheraa's eyes narrow in concentration, the entirety of his being focused on the marble in front of him; I focus all my senses on it as well, realizing I can't afford to miss a mont of this.
A barrage of sensations follows.
A sharp spike of Firmant. An inversion. The sense of sothing breaking, complete and irreversible. Power waxes and wanes, the blue fades...
...and then it sprouts.
Gheraa's panting. His entire body sways, and I reach forward to catch him just before he collapses onto the ground. This close to him, I can feel how much he's shaking—part of it from effort, I'm sure, but part of it from... fear?
I try to lift him to his feet, but he's light. Impossibly light, and getting lighter by the second.
The marble in front of him has changed. There's a small seedling sprouting out of it, and I can sense the way it's drawing in Firmant the sa way a plant might draw in carbon dioxide—converting it into sothing pure, sothing I can almost instinctively sense I can use. It's real. I can sense it settling into . This wasn't just a demonstration, this was...
"...That wasn't a skill, was it?" I ask him quietly. He laughs, the sound weak, and shakes his head.
"No," he says. There's a faint smile on his face—a small sense of pride in being able to trick , I suppose. "It wasn't. Use it well, Ethan."
"I will." I don't know what to say. Maybe this isn't the real Gheraa, but he's still essentially just... given up his existence. To give a head start. "...Thank you."
"Say that to the real when you et him," Gheraa says. He manages a final grin.
And just like that, he's gone.
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