The technician was fidgeting with her measuring tape as she watched Randidly preparing the prototype to test his idea. “Sir… are these really designed to fly…?”

Randidly glanced over his shoulder at the woman and then turned back to face the 1 meter by 1-meter slab of concrete in front of him. He cracked the knuckles of his right hand and flexed each finger. Very specific lines wormed their way across the surface of the slab, engraved directly onto the surface by Mana. “Depends on what you mean by designed, I suppose. Now, Tatiana tells me that the moss spirits like you quite a lot?”

“Well… yes…” The young woman rubbed her eyes with the knuckle of her thumb and glanced around at the surrounding area. When it became immediately apparent they were still alone, the engineer rubbed her sweaty hands on her jeans to work off some of her nerves.

They were at a currently deserted portion of Kharon, rather inexplicably named ‘Docks’. The Docks encompassed the slew of roads and tunnels along the South of Kharon that was dedicated to inter-industry transport. Aside from warehouses and overpasses, Randidly and the engineer were alone in the early morning air.

Randidly rubbed his hands together as his Mana continued to flow out and put the finishing touches on the Engraving. Starting to get a bit cold. And here I thought that seasons were mostly eliminated by the System. Probably not good news for Earth that they are making a comeback.

Around the two individuals were several more preprepared platforms of wood, metal, and concrete, waiting for further experimentation. Randidly had requisitioned a whole group of people to help, but the rest were currently gathering materials or additional civilian volunteers to participate in the experiment. So the engineer mostly adjusted the grip of her clasped hands and cast nervous glances toward Randidly.

It wasn’t as though Randidly didn’t have a fair bit of sympathy toward her. No matter what he did, the presence of his powerful images and Nether Gatekeeper body seemed to seep out and unnerve the average person. He had even tried to prepare so a one on one session like this wouldn’t happen; the only reason that she was here alone was that she had arrived late. So while the others continued to bring more stuff, she received the dubious honor of being the subject of the experiment.

The Engraving across the concrete slab flared to life and Randidly nodded decisively. “Perfect. Okay, I want you to stand on the slab.”

To her credit, she only hesitated for a short amount of time before walking quickly and hopping onto the slab. Although Randidly could tell her images weren’t too powerful, she at least had some Levels under her belt.

Now comes the hard part, Randidly thought with a little amusement. He tried his best to smile reassuringly at her. “Alright, I’ve put the Engraving they need, so what I want you to do is ask the moss spirits to lift the platform.”

The engineer blinked. “What…?”

Randidly swirled his finger in the air and mobilized a small portion of his Willpower. Responding to his desire, several dozen moss spirits slid out of the ground and gathered around Randidly’s finger in a tiny spinning nova. “The moss spirits are pure energy tied into the consciousness of Kharon. The Engravings I made give the spirits something to grip on to interact with the slabs. You said you are liked by the spirits, so ask them to grip the piece of ground underneath you and lift it up.”

“Uh… the moss spirits can do that…?” The engineer asked quietly. Randidly didn’t bother to reply. Instead, he started Engraving two more slabs. After having finished the Engraving once, he was much more confident in its execution and could work much more quickly.

By the time Randidly finished with the second batch, the engineer had mustered up her courage and began to whistle a lively tune. Very quickly quite a bit more moss spirits than Randidly had summoned by simply urging them appeared. Of course, once the moss spirits were dancing around the engineer, she looked helplessly at Randidly.

He ignored her, humming to himself as he continued to work. I already know that I could get them to lift the slab; they would do basically anything for me The real question is whether anyone can. And how long their dedication to those people would last… Sorta awkward for this whole venture if the moss spirits only hold something up as long as someone is on top of it, or until they get distracted. It would have been possible to bind the moss spirits who try to engage with the Engraving, but that seems like a poor repayment to Kharon for everything that it does for us.

With no help forthcoming, the engineer hesitantly stopped whistling. Soon, the moss spirits swirled around her playfully before beginning to drift away. After clearing her throat, the engineer said. “Uh… excuse me moss spirits... uh, Mr. Ghosthound, it seems like tha-!”

The engineer paused when her words caused a surge of sudden stillness among the moss spirits around her as she addressed them. Then she leapt a full meter off the ground as another surge of moss spirits emerged from the ground and the whole of them clustered around her person.

Randidly simply glanced casually over his shoulder. Already he was moving on to engrave a larger frame to eventually test how much weight the moss spirits could bear. “I hope I don’t need to tell you that the moss spirits quite like being addressed directly.”

“I… suppose so.” The engineer blinked, her earlier fear quickly being forgotten. From the narrowing of her eyes, Randidly could tell that her mind was already grasping at some of the possibilities of utilizing the moss spirits directly. Then, to the moss spirits, she said, “Can you lift this? With me on it?”

Immediately, the shimmering moss spirits flooded down into the Engraving. The sharp lines that Randidly had drawn surged to life to become a flowing teal color. After a somewhat ominous rumbling, the concrete slab lifted off the ground and began to easily levitate. So the woman pondered it before asking the moss spirits to float her slowly forward. They did so immediately at an almost glacial pace.

As the engineer grew more confident in the attempts, her asks became more detailed. And the moss spirits seemed to understand her perfectly every time.

As the engineer zoomed back and forth in the air about the docks, Randidly continued to Engrave and fondly watch the interaction. He didn’t truly believe that no one had discovered that it was possible to communicate with the moss spirits, but Randidly supposed it was possible that no one really discovered what the moss spirits could do.

What really changed for this experiment was Randidly’s mastery of Engraving. Without the Engraving, none of this would have been possible.

Congratulations! Your Skill Architecture of the Primordial Ways (M) has grown to Level 252!

Obviously, Randidly had created Kharon with a lot of functions in mind for the moss spirits beyond just sometimes condensing a physical body to assist in its defense. But he had been hard-pressed to find the time to work on that functionality before he had to face his Judgement and be dragged away from Earth. Although in this case, the delay ended up being a fruitful one, because the growth amongst the moss spirits as Kharon flourished did a lot to assuage his worries.

One by one, the others that Randidly had sent away to arrange for the experiments trickled back. As they gathered more volunteers and materials, the rest of the team assigned to Randidly stopped and looked in shock at the engineer that was treating her cement platform like a racecar. With a few whispered orders, she streaked past the space where the crowd was slowly gathering, banked into a tight curve, and then effortlessly landed on the ground. She took a step off with a smug look on her face.

Of course, all the real work was done by the moss spirits, Randidly thought with a twist of his mouth, but he didn’t interrupt the engineer’s moment of glory. There honestly was some danger in the attempt, although Randidly would have saved her if the bottom had dropped out from under her.

After the group had calmed down and started to get excited about the economic possibilities, Randidly stepped in and started giving them things to test. He stressed that they treat the moss spirits as intelligent, and recommended that they very quickly try and lay out an arrangement of reinforced bribes with the moss spirits.

Essentially, Randidly wanted them to find something that the moss spirits liked, like the engineer's whistling, and then repeat it as they slowly upped the requests for the moss spirits. Randidly suspected that long term, these sorts of payments would be enough to keep the moss spirits involved. But he had no real proof other than his intuition as their creator.

While the group began to experiment more systematically with the moss spirits, Randidly wandered off in search of Vye. She had asked for approval to have her independent mission be a mapping of the Wildlands and Randidly believed that it would be a good chance to see how moss spirits fared when they were away from Kharon for long periods of time. Because Randidly didn’t even know if the moss spirits could leave Kharon.

After traveling halfway back across Kharon, Randidly located Vye. He hesitated as he neared the building that he sensed her image in because she was clearly in her apartment. Randidly hesitated even more because he was almost uncomfortably aware of how sharp a picture Grim Intuition gave him of the interior of the apartment.

And inside, Vye was having an argument.

“Why are you acting like this is a surprise?” Vye gritted her teeth. “Did you think what I wanted changed? That you just waltzed into my life and changed me?”

“No, I-” The man rubbed his hand across his forehead. “I am just surprised that you are going to come home after a night of patrols, sit down for breakfast, and now tell me, ‘I’m leaving tomorrow, so maybe we should break up’. What the hell am I supposed to say to that? Am I supposed to say anything?”

“Well if you have nothing to say, then there’s nothing to say.” Vye sat down at the table and began to enthusiastically cut off a large chunk of fried ham.

“That’s not what I’m saying! I wish you would have…” But the man just sighed.

Vye’s hands tightened on her metal knife. “What, Todd? Do you wish I would have asked you? As though I need your permission before I follow my dream-”

“What the hell are you saying, V?” Todd turned away from the window where he had been standing. “YOU are the one who stomped in here ready to start a fight. You clearly don’t need my permission to go on this mission for the Order. But you know what pisses me off? That you didn’t even talk to me about it. That you didn’t ask me to come with you.”

“You’re Level 12, you wouldn’t be safe coming with me,” Vye cut across sharply. Todd’s face went red, then white, and then he bit his lip.

The two’s gazes locked. Todd stood at the window and looked toward Vye, who had a piece of ham skewered on a fork. Neither moved.

After about twenty seconds, Vye set down her fork. “You know what? I’m just going to grab something from a stand on Banner Street for breakfast today.”

“Just gonna walk out, huh? Good, good,” Todd said softly, turning away as Vye grabbed her stuff and left the apartment.

Standing out front, Randidly scratched his chin awkwardly. His first instinct was to back slowly away and talk to Vye later, but he also knew that part of leadership was advising on matters other than just combat and images.

That is, assuming of course, that she will want my advice… Randidly thought to himself. He tried to marshal his face into an expression that was more like ‘I’m very knowledgeable and therefore can guess what happened to you,’ than ‘I’ve been creepily eavesdropping on your personal conversations,’ as a teary-eyed Vye pushed her way out of the apartment building.

When she saw Randidly, she skidded to a stop and furiously wiped away her tears. “Ah… h-hey.”

“Hey,” Randidly responded simply. As he saw the genuine pain in her face, a lot of his own nervousness about the situation started to feel a little bit selfish and petty. He jerked his head down the street and tried his best to seem both convincing and soothing. “Let me buy you a coffee. Looks like you need it.”