Before I left the temple, Isul and I talked a little more. He told me that the new form of energy I felt was called “phaenescence,” and that it was used by powers derived from the Tripartite. The amount you had was usually related to the quantity and quality of your titles.

“So,” he said, “it never hurts to have more achievements. When you rank up, it will let you express your Inner World more freely.”

“Is it possible to challenge the results of the ritual?” I asked. “Like, if I wanted to get a different World Seed, or something…”

“Of course. As long as you are willing to give up your current World Seed and all that is built on it, and you have three new titles to stake in the ritual, you can always try again.”

Who in the world would have that many titles to spare?

“So it is possible to destroy your World Seed?”

He nodded. “The creation of the new world necessitates the destruction of the old. But it’s rare to destroy your domain without obtaining a new one.”

I frowned.

“Is it hard to do?”

“Oh, yes, very.”

But it seemed like Acacius Duval might have done it.

Title: [Denier of the Prison of Mind]

Symbol/Manifestation: Bird cage

Description: The mind constructs the world to understand the world. The construct separates the mind from the world. The chick breaks out of the egg, and the egg is the world. Destroy that which imprisons you, and yourself with it.

Title Skill: Mitigates the rules of another’s world on the title holder if their world’s name or three sources can be identified. Mitigates spirits’ effects on the title holder if the spirit’s core title or three auxiliary titles can be identified. The degree of mitigation increases with knowledge of the target.

Note: A special reward to the one who rejected and destroyed their own framework of mind, unwilling to be bound by the Inner World that was seen. Perhaps the space outside the cage is also a cage.

Although I could see how this title would be useful for a prophet, it felt like the more I understood about the world, the more difficult Acacius Duval was for me to understand.

Why rank up, only to destroy the source of your power?

As if hearing my inner turmoil, Isul responded.

“Even for those who don’t like the results, not many have the resolve to give up everything they’ve worked for. it’s never a simple thing to leave the past behind.”

Our conversation ended on that downer of a note. Isul bid a solemn farewell as I left the temple. At least he was polite enough not to act cheerful at me when I kind of felt like the whole world should just disappear.

Regardless of how I felt, I still had things to do today, so after walking outside the Temple aimlessly for a while and collecting my thoughts, I headed down to the Pearl Dive.

Being a weekend afternoon, the place was decently busy. Still, when Thais spotted me, she waved for someone to take her place at the counter and came over.

“Hey. Etienne’s not here today, so I’ll be helping you instead. Unless you got any objections?”

“Nah.”

“Come on, then.”

After showing me to the back room, she retrieved a sheaf of papers from the upstairs area where I wasn’t allowed to go. She sat down on a stool next to me, lit a cigarette, and went over the security at Veratrum Row.

In summary, there was nobody Epic rank or above stationed there, because if you made it to Epic rank you were probably someone with ideas about how to better spend your time. That said, many of the houses there still had private security, wards, or alarms in place. It wouldn’t be easy to break in without being noticed.

Thais explained everything from the mindset of a thief, but looking over the blueprints myself, I thought a bandit could still make a huge mess if he tried.

It was always better to be stronger, though, so now that I had some time to prepare, I definitely wanted to explore the abilities of the kaleidoscope perspective frame.

When Thais finished explaining everything, I thanked her and got up to continue on my way.

Just as I got to the door, though, she called out, “Wait.”

“Yeah?”

Thais ashed her cigarette on one of the crates next to her and mulled over her next words.

“Nithemoore’s work-study program period is coming up soon. We’ll trade for any information about the participants’ attitudes towards the Anthemoessians. That’s all.”

I nodded like I understood anything and silently added two more items to my ever-growing list of things to look up.

With all those tasks cleared away, I returned to my dorm and coaxed Clover away from the windowsill where it was still bathing in the late afternoon sun. Then, ignoring my reflexively rising heart rate, I checked the seam for any new messages.

There were some new notifications from the group chat with Luka, Veric, and Roxana. Mostly it seemed to be chatting about a homework assignment that I hadn’t completed and didn’t plan to, so I ignored the chat.

More relevantly, I’d received communications from M about something I’d asked for a couple days back.

M has sent a file: kaleidoscope_perspective_fundamentals.inf

I forced myself to type a response with sweaty hands.

Me: Thanks.

Me: By the way. How is KP-04 doing, money-wise?

They responded almost instantly.

M: why

M: u wanna sponsor my research?

Me: I was thinking more like you could sponsor me…

M: right ur broke rn lol

Umm. Had I told anyone about my financial situation with the Duvals?

M has sent a file: pity_allowance.inf

M: go play with that for a while.

I struggled with my seam for a few minutes before figuring out how to open the file. It detailed some agreement between M and the Broken Kaleidoscope about research sharing, which seemed to involve a hefty money transfer. There was a table calculating how much M had put aside for me, as well as the address of a bank in Nithemoore City, a bank account number, and a passcode.

Was it really that easy to get all this money…? It felt crazy to just have stuff handed to me, even if I did technically almost die for it.

It was a good thing M was helping me figure all this stuff out, though. I’d been kinda worried how I was gonna pay Etienne for both information and additional combat practice.

I read through the data on the KP frame that M had sent me, doing my best to concentrate even though the dense academic text gave me a headache and made me feel sleepy. All my days in Nithemoore’s classrooms still hadn’t given me the fortitude to handle all this.

The Broken Kaleidoscope had collected a lot of information over the years on the KP frame’s powers. Their breakdown on perspective magic was pretty exhaustive, and they had almost completely reverse engineered the mediums that casters used to form and use the Eyes. They were just constantly stuck on the last step, because the Eye of the Kaleidoscope was both the connective tissue and the core of all these magics.

It was how a caster could see using one of the other Eyes, and it was how the “perspective” in perspective magic could be turned into “reality.” Without solving KP-04 and bringing out the Eye of the Kaleidoscope, they’d hit a bottleneck on their research.

I guess that was why they were willing to pay so much to access M’s research on the butterflies…

Anyways, [Incarnation of the Final Kaleidoscope] had given me access to all of the Kaleidoscope’s powers. Theoretically, I had everything I needed to master this frame. I just had to figure it all out first.

I took a break to eat and stretch a bit before heading to Zaire’s. He didn’t answer when i knocked on the door, so i let myself in and let myself into KP-04.

I found him in the Cagzol Caverns by the caterpillar enclosures, gesticulating enthusiastically as he craned his neck back to talk to someone. When I drew closer, though, I didn’t see anyone there.

Zaire ended his conversation and looked back at me, giving an enthusiastic wave.

“Acacius! Fancy seeing you here!”

“Was I interrupting anything?”

“Not really, I was just wrapping up my conversation with M.”

Despite messaging me earlier, I guess M still didn’t want to interact with me in person.

“How are things?”

“Ehh… it’s been busy. but not as busy as things are for you, I’m sure,” he added, giving me a friendly nudge. “Wanna see the caterpillars?”

The caterpillars were getting really large and fat. They seemed decently nutritious… I wondered what they would taste like if you roasted them.

“How long will it take for them to grow up?” I asked.

“Well, M got some data out of the Broken Kaleidoscope’s hands, and they think it’ll take around six weeks for them to pupate, and another three weeks to complete their metamorphosis. What I’m really worried about is their migration habits.” Zaire sighed. “They’ll probably try to migrate to the other islands or the mainland that existed in their original world, but here in Kosmonymia, KP-04 only contains this one island.”

“Can we keep them in a captive enclosure?”

“That’s the plan for now. I just hope it won’t impact their breeding habits; some species won’t start breeding unless they’re in the right place and season.”

That really was a problem. If the butterflies didn’t establish a stable ecological cycle, I’d have to look for another way to lift Acacius’ stupid death curse.

“Speaking of obtaining data,” Zaire added, “did you get M’s message? They said they sent you some data about the KP frame.”

“Yeah. I plan to experiment with it a bit soon. How is M doing, anyways? Any trouble from how Luka and I divided up the island?”

“Nah. Well, Luka’s side has negotiated something with the Broken Kaleidoscope too, so they’ve been around a few times to set up more permanent research facilities. They want to negotiate with M about access to the caverns, too. But,” Zaire gestured at the caterpillars, “for now, M only wants people they can trust around.”

Wow, what the hell had Luka been up to? I guess I should put some time aside to plumb him for information.

Zaire and I hung out a little while longer. He talked about his classes in the Scholar track, complaining about the workload of the biomedical subtrack and excitedly detailing the latest labs they got to do. He told me a bit about the technical details of using different frames to diagnose the same patient, and the historical struggles with developing consistent standards of care. I also offered a couple anecdotes from my classes but was careful to avoid mentioning anything about my grades, which were bad.

Then I told him I was going to the surface to mess with some stuff, and I didn’t want anyone disturbing me. I tried to be a bit more polite about it than that, but Zaire got the gist of it and accepted it quite easily. He reassured me that M wouldn’t peek either, since our principal of minimal involvement had been very comfortable for them so far.

It was suprisingly easy to get along with someone so antisocial.

Exiting the caverns, I headed up the mountains until I found a nice alpine field to experiment in.

First, the KP frame. When I activated [Incarnation], I could use the abilities of the Eye of the Kaleidoscope, which would let me use perspective magic and the other Eyes. I didn’t have the [Last Genesis]’ power without using that butterfly form, though, and the biggest downside of that form was my relative blindness. I hated depending on other people being in the right position and looking the right place to see what was going on. So I figured the best Eye to learn next was the Eye of Clairvoyance. If I could do that, then I wouldn’t have to depend on others to cast perspective magic, either.

I didn’t have a catalyst for the Eye of Clairvoyance, but Tiziri had worn one. It occurred to me that Ozias, as a member of the Broken Kaleidoscope, had probably possessed some catalysts too.

Actuallu, Ozias was also part of that Order of the Broken Sun or whatever, so maybe he’d had one of those sacrificial flow amulets as well? If he did, then he’d make the perfect target for [Honest Man’s Deception] to imitate — both for practicing the frames, and for carrying out the actual attack on Veratrum Row.

Setting my target to Ozias at the time of our final battle, I put on [Honest Man’s Deception] and transformed.

My line of height changed. I was taller, bulkier. I flexed my hands experimentally before inspecting Ozias’ body and what he had been wearing at the time.

First, the title tattoos. In Ozias’ form, none of mine were visible, but Ozias’ were. They were inert, with no apparent power contained within them. I guess the Tripartite wouldn’t make it so easy to use titles I hadn’t earned somehow.

This form also didn’t have the copper-green beads that Ozias had used as weapons. Luka had said they were a unique title or World Proof; I guess I couldn’t imitate them with [Deceiver] if I didn’t have its name. However, hidden underneath Ozias’ robes was a full set of five crystalline objects strung on a necklace, one of which matched the appearance of Tiziri’s catalyst.

Unfortunately, there was no sacrificial flow amulet. It was a shame things couldn’t be that easy.

I attached the brooch I got from Tarascus onto Ozias’ robe, held onto the clear crystal catalyst that represented the Eye of Clairvoyance, and tried activating [Incarnation]. Although the title tattoo wasn’t present on this current form, the wings still came out and my eyesight went. The catalyst I held remained inert.

According to the Broken Kaleidoscope’s documents, I needed to grasp the feeling of “soul energy” and channel it into the catalyst, which would shape the Eye of Clairvoyance above the user’s head.

Recalling the feeling of using the Kaleidoscope to break other “gazes,” I stirred up that current of energy from the core inside me and directed it towards the catalyst.

It soaked up my energy greedily, spinning it into a formless presence before me. The Eye of Clairvoyance didn’t have a visible form, but I could feel its perspective blooming gradually in my awareness. A chill settled over my skin as it gazed back at me.

As the Eye’s form stabilized, it pulled on my awareness, sort of like connecting to a rig in my home world, or like being summoned by Luka. The amount it demanded was manageable but not small. I manipulated the Eye of Clairvoyance to look around the area, noting a sort of energy consumption as I moved it or chose to look through objects. When Tiziri had used this thing to search for me, her consciousness had basically left her body, hadn’t it? Did she have a smaller “awareness” than me…? It would explain some things, like why we’d thought her soul had vacated the body entirely. It felt like creating more than one of these Eyes at a time would be a strain.

I played around with forming and dissolving the Eye of Clairvoyance a few times until I’d gotten a feel for its construction, then attempted creating it without depending on the catalyst.

It was delicate and difficult. I guess if it was easy, no one would be using the catalysts in the first place. Part of what made it so finicky was the way my awareness started splitting when the Eye began to form, which affected the way I manipulated the “soul energy” in me. It was like a constantly changing balancing act. But if I wanted to use the Eye without acquiring a catalyst artifact or exposing my transformation ability, I needed to learn.

I practiced that for a while before deciding I needed some mental breathing space and switching to the second thing I wanted to practice: the sacrificial flow frame.

I didn’t have a net amulet anymore — all found copies had been confiscated by the International Weather Association, apparently — but I’d worn one in KP-04, so all I had to do was use [Honest Man’s Deception] to transform into the me of that time.

Incidentally, my clothes had been really bloodstained at the time, so it wasn’t a great look for remaining inconspicuous to others.

My experience with using the sacrificial flow frame had been spontaneous and uncontrolled. If I was going to frame the Order of the Black Sun for terrorism on Iyiria’s nobles, though, it was time to improve my proficiency.

First, I spent some time walking around and observing the ribbons that indicated the flow of air and water around me. When the wind was strong, or the water in a visible body such as a creek, it was easy to observe. However, with the time and leisure to sit with it, I realized that there were broad, feathery, nearly-transparent ribbons around me as well — so amorphous that they were perhaps better described as “sheets.”

These sheets had directional ripples barely discernible to my eye, and if I didn’t concentrate on touching them, I would wisp through them like fog. I placed my hand on one and tried sending out a spark of red light like what I could use to weave other flow ribbons. The sheet rippled and billowed like a sail, awkward and difficult to control, and ballooned away. My skin prickled as the moisture in the area was sucked away.

Huh… so something as subtle as evaporation or moisture could also be represented by one of these sheets? What would happen around a heat source?

I gathered up some tinder, built a campfire, and briefly switched to the 6E frame to light it. Then I used the sacrificial flow frame to observe.

More flow ribbons emerged before my eyes. When I pulled them out of their natural path, the heat emanating from the fire wafted out to follow. It was hard to say if the flow ribbon was indicating the flow of air or of heat, since heated air tended to rise, after all…

Still, I felt like it opened up some options for me. Like how storm clouds formed when warm, wet air rose or something like that… Maybe I could conjure up a rainstorm if I looked up the conditions of its formation? But Veratrum Row could definitely weather a little bit of rain. It would be better to do something more destructive, like a tornado. I’d only read about those in Teacher’s books, though, so it would take some research to pull that off…

It would also be good to have a showy move like shattering all the windows in the street. That would definitely make me seem more evil. Could I create some kind of pressure front? Or should I just try for a big, explosive gale?

I found myself a bit regretful that I hadn’t interrogated any Order members about the sacrificial flow frame before killing them. If I asked Etienne or M to dig for information, would the timing be too suspicious?

Better to experiment on my own a little longer.

I soon discovered that it was possible to intensify the force of a flow ribbon by infusing it with more red light. I wasn’t sure if there was an upper limit to it, but so far, I hadn’t run out of any of that red energy yet; I’d cut myself off from using more because when there was too much force, the ribbons were hard to control. In one experiment, I snapped a small tree in half and blew myself down the mountain before I got the wind back under control.

I was starting to understand why the Order members manipulating the weather had been comparatively easy to kill. It took concentration and finesse to control everything. It had definitely been easier destroying one of their woven weather constructs than trying to build one…

I decided to call it a night after I’d just about shaved bare a whole patch of the mountainside. No more destruction for today. Thank goodness I had KP-04 to test this all out in; who knows what kind of a mess I would’ve made out of the school’s training grounds if I was there.

As I got ready to sleep, I mentally organized my plan for the week.

I didn’t want to wait too long before faking an attack on Veratrum Row, or else Veric’s situation would keep getting worse, and then I’d really feel pushed to do something drastic. I’d also been pondering over the best time to carry out a fake attack, and eventually, I decided it was best to do it during the lunch period of a school day.

After all, that was the period when Nastaran Farzan, who was not very combat focused, tended to make a trip back; the other students on Veratrum Row tended to be at school or busy outside. It was an excellent time for looking like a serious terrorist attack without running into difficult opponents. As for the security on premises, well, people were usually less wary during the day. I felt this timing could avoid troubles and unneeded casualties.

The way I figured, I could ask Veric to do me a favor and deliver something to the Duval residence during the lunch period. That way, she could go to school in the morning before playing the hero in my grand plan. As the planner, though, it was really inconvenient for me to be stuck in school the day of, but it would be way too conspicuous if I just skipped class for the one day that the attack happened, right?

So anyways, that’s why I was planning to fake getting sick.

It would also give me time off from school to practice my skills and stage the attack. I figured it would be most natural if I attended for a couple days, faked falling ill, and then stopped attending for the rest of the week. If I didn’t come to school at all after the weekend, the teachers might think I was faking sick just to avoid my classmates after the whole makeup exam fiasco, and I didn’t want anyone doubting the veracity of my being sick.

I was confident in my acting ability, but the problem was that Veric was in the same classroom as me and she had her pain sensing thing. So did Roxana. If I didn’t actually feel unwell, Veric could call my bluff in an instant, but if I did feel unwell, maybe she’d bring Roxana to instantly cure me of my ailment.

I had an idea to address this, but I’d need to get some more information.

So I got up early the next day to go to the school library and read about the Dragon Temple’s healing.

The librarian, Miss Bakhta, picked out a book for me. It was pretty technical and some of the terminology went over my head, but the gist of it was that the Dragon Temple’s healing abilities were derived from the Great Dragon’s symbology, which itself was influenced by its ownership of the SP-01 fantasm world.

The author speculated that the healing abilities had originally been shared or granted through one of the Great Dragon’s titles, and the healing power of the Great Dragon’s talismans perhaps came from the Great Dragon’s status as a Hierarch and ability to manipulate symbols. Over time, the Great Dragon’s cultural prominence and Iyiria’s faith in it had formed its own pseudo-frame, though the most powerful of the Dragon Priests’ abilities were manifested through a system of titles obtained by working at the shrines. 

The Dragon Shrine’s healing was, in essence, a restoration of the body to its natural state. It could soothe pain, heal wounds, restore body parts, and undo certain types of acquired damage, such as trauma-induced blindness. However, it couldn’t purge illnesses from the body or stop its natural degeneration over time.

For example, if someone was infected and developed a fever, the Dragon Shrine’s healing could restore the fever, but wouldn’t eliminate the infection; similarly, pain from chronic conditions and autoimmune diseases could be alleviated by the Dragon Shrine, but unless its root cause was cured, it would eventually come back.

Nonetheless, the Dragon Shrine’s healing had a reputation around the world. It wasn’t uncommon for people with chronic conditions to move to Iyiria, since regular visits to one of the temples could keep their conditions in check. With how many people visited for health reasons, the Dragon Shrine’s temples often partnered with doctors and hospitals to provide what the Dragon Shrine’s healing could not.

I concluded from this information that if I got a fever, Veric and Roxana wouldn’t try healing it, since that would be suppressing the body’s immune response without treating what had caused it. Now I just had to fake a fever.

After leaving the library, I found Master Dalileh in the gymnasium office, reading through a newspaper and enjoying a coffee with her feet kicked up on the desk.

“Good morning, Master Dalileh.”

“Acacius boy. Bit early for your class time, no?”

“I wanted to ask you something. Can you use the 6E fire element to control heat without generating fire?”

Dalileh cocked her head to the side. “Now that’s an interesting question. Technically, yes. It is related to your ether control and ability to take advantage of the environment to minimize your ether consumption. For example, if there is moisture in the air, I can condense it to form a body of water rather than generating water out of my ether.”

With a crook of her finger, the steam rising from her coffee cup condensed into a small sphere of water over her palm.

“Similarly, because heat creates flame, it is easier to use fire magic where the temperature is high, since your ether does not have to generate so much. When you spread out your ether domain, pay attention to places where the ether needed to create fire is lower. Then, type a small amount of ether there. If you use the right amount, you will be able to concentrate or disperse the heat according to your fire needs. However, the margin of error to manipulate heat before creating real flame is small. It’s a level of control that a fourth-circle like you barely needs to worry about.”

I pointed at her coffee cup. “What if I practiced with heat from a hot drink, like that? Would the tolerance be higher?”

“You aren’t touching my coffee, boy. But yes.”

“Awesome. Thanks.”

“Instead of thanking me, take my advice and start your ether domain practice again. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you falling behind on that since the field trip. This is exactly the time to consider how to improve your strength, hmm?”

I held back a sheepish smile. “You’re right, Master Dalileh. I’ll keep that in mind.”

As I left and headed for the classroom, I decided to get a cup of hot tea from the cafeteria during a break and see if I could experiment with heat like that. If I could draw the heat to myself, then theoretically, I could fake the development of a low-grade fever without Veric calling me out on my bullshit. If things went well, maybe she’d even end up testifying on my behalf….

I was snapped out of my thoughts when I opened the classroom door and an immediate hush fell over the students talking in there. Countless scrutinizing gazes turned my way.

Hm.

This couldn’t be the consequence of my actions during the exam, could it?

I ignored the attention and went to my usual seat at the window. Gradually, my classmates began talking quietly among themselves again, but they kept casting furtive looks in my direction.

Veric made significant eye contact with me from across the room, holding up a seam necklace and shaking it pointedly. I guess she wanted me to check my messages? I shrugged. I hadn’t brought Clover out of my dorm room since Zaire had gifted it to me, both because I didn’t want to carry a paranoia-inducing object with me and because I was worried it would fly away.

Veric gave me an exasperated look and turned to say something to Luka. I think they wanted to come over and talk, but at that moment, Professor Raoul came in and clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention. It was time for class to start.

Even as Professor Raoul read through the day’s announcements, the looks I was getting didn’t go away. The attention was kind of grating.

So as Professor Raoul’s announcements wound down, I raised my hand.

“Yes, Acacius?”

“Can I borrow the podium for a little bit?”

Without waiting his agreement, I got up and went to stand at the front of the room. Professor Raoul was nonplussed enough that he let me shoo him to the side without doing much more than blinking mouse-like from behind his spectacles.

I placed my hands on either side of the podium and looked out at my classmates.

“Good morning. I notice that there are a lot of eyes on me today.”

The number of people looking at me suddenly reduced as they awkwardly glanced to the side.

“Normally it’s not something I’d care to do something about. Since my personality is bad. But in the interest of peace and class harmony… and to prevent future issues from cropping up… I’m willing to entertain questions and comments about recent events. For this short period.”

I paused, scanning over the classroom.

“What, no one? Nothing to say? Then let’s consider those topics closed for discussion forever…”

Veric hastily raised her hand.

“Yeah, Veric.”

“If you know you have a bad personality,” she said, “why don’t you do something about it?”

“Well, then someone might want to talk to me,” I said. “Any other questions?”

Thanks to Veric breaking the ice, this time, multiple people raised their hands. Their expressions ranged from cautious, to scrutinizing, to downright pissed off.

I held back a sigh.

This better work to clear the air and keep others from bothering me further, or I was really going to be unhappy.

Chapter 58 Back to Index