Over the next month of focused Nether research, Randidly managed to lure up a few more Nether Beasts from the midnight-blue depths by releasing expansive pulses of his images. One of those unlucky ‘fish’ had been much stronger than the others, clearly having expended its Virtue for Stature several times in the past. In addition, after Randidly slaughtered it and obtained its core, the markings there had been particularly eye-catching.

Combined with the subtle alterations that Randidly gradually internalized from Neveah’s gifted arm Engraving, his Skill steadily increased. In terms of proficiency, he was confident that he had made significant improvements.

In addition, all three of his images grew quite a bit sharper during that time. Well, Randidly didn’t think that was quite accurate. In terms of detail, there was some minor improvement, but it wasn’t overwhelming. Rather than sharper…

...Randidly’s new images now cast much darker shadows.

Being constantly exposed to the wild emotions at this depth meant that he couldn’t slack on his emotional precision even for a second. Each manifestation grew both more vivid and self-contained, while also becoming strangely… leaky. That is, the power of the image spread out like an amorphous cloak as the emotional base expanded and dominated the surrounding space.

Randidly’s growth was very quick… in every area except the one that was probably the most important. His understanding of Engraving was shaping up nicely, but when it came to transforming that into a Nether Core...

“Fuck me,” Randidly growled as he pulled his hand back and slammed it against the bone wall in frustration. The surface didn’t even shake, let alone crack, despite the fact that this blow blasted past the physical limit of the System as it struck. This spine had seen much worse in its day than Randidly’s fist.

And that realization only depressed him further.

With a sigh, he lowered his slightly sore hand and studied the shallow markings on the wall. The drawing there was the most recent in a long string of failures that stretched off to his right about a quarter of the way around the inside of the spine. He had begun the process with Yggdrasil, as it was his first image. His thought process was that he understood Yggdrasil the best, out of all his images. And he had tried to use his Architecture of the Primordial Ways to epitomize that ethereal concept as his first and probably most important image almost sixty times now.

But even halfway through this most recent attempt, before he deepened the Nether flowing through the Engraving, the flows began to destabilize and run together in a messy knot. Somehow, Randidly looked at the wiggly drawing of a tree and realized that both the shape and the ideal that he was pursuing was insufficient.

Randidly raised his hand and ruffled his hair. Plus… I can’t make the Engraving look like a tree. The doppelganger could because that truly was his natural expression of his ideas. But I have too much of an abstract base in my Engraving… the final product should evoke the feeling of Yggdrasil, but the core runes will just need to be more esoteric…

Randidly had considered not trying to mirror his threes images exactly, but then he would have no idea how to start this process. Besides, he sensed that achieving a balance between his current self and his Nether Class would be best. Aether and Nether in harmony would give him the boost in strength he was looking for.

Probably not all the way to Velio Dunn’s level, but still...

The other problem, of course, was what physical object would serve as Randidly’s core. The most convenient answer was putting those final carvings somewhere within his Alpha Cosmos, but the problem was that he would need to mentally be in the Alpha Cosmos while he worked on them. Unfortunately, he had experimented and discovered he couldn’t maintain the emotional tether while he was within his Alpha Cosmos.

Which meant that to prevent his body from unknowingly tumbling down into the significance below, Randidly would need to create the cores here.

Randidly couldn’t help but grin widely and stare down toward the churning significance below. “Of course… are you truly as dangerous to me as you were to Roy…? These fucking Nether Beasts seem fine from wandering around…”

But they possessed Nether Cores.

Of course, even though his words reverberated down through the conductive midnight-blue air, there was no answer from below. All around him was only emotions and stillness in the Nether rich air. The stretched time of this place was steadily getting on Randidly’s nerves, and he wasn’t sure what he could do about it.

His continued failures didn’t help his mood in the least.

“What am I fucking missing…?” He muttered, looking again at his drawing. And of course, he could think of an answer; he wasn’t truly able to find the significance of Yggdrasil. It being the first image he ever developed was obviously true… but something was missing to that explanation. The ‘first’ was just a label. It couldn’t cover everything Yggdrasil was to him.

As for methods other than a boring-ass extended meditation session to find that truth…

Randidly hesitated for a few seconds, then reached into his interspatial ring and produced a heavy scroll from within his ring’s messy depths. The texture of the paper was thick and rough, as though it was a mix of canvas and true paper. The edges were frayed and tattered as though it had existed for a long time.

Strangely, as Randidly produced his Fatepiece the Visage of Obsession, he felt the Nether in the surrounding space stir. Even his own Nether Nebula began to churn just a little bit faster. Even the emotions that were rushing past began to imperceptibly curve toward him, as though they were caught in the orbit of some overwhelming celestial sphere. His fingers tightened on the Fatepiece. He glanced around at the darkness and barred his teeth. “Heh. Am I supposed to feel happy that my Fatepiece can create this sort of response…? Are you hinting that this is the answer I’ve been looking for?”

Randidly’s emerald eyes went back to the rolled-up painting. The response from the surroundings did make some sense, however. It was the Visage of Obsession. Obviously, there was a powerful emotional component to the Fatepiece. In a way, it was reassuring to see its effect.

Yet it was still impossible to tell if this would help him find the significance to form his Nether Cores.

Some part of Randidly told him that this was a gamble made attractive only due to how aggressive he was right now, but Randidly was losing his patience after toying with the Nether Beasts for a few weeks. Perhaps if he was struggling to understand the Engraving Neveah sent, or to think of ways to improve one of his images, he wouldn’t have so quickly turned to the Fatepiece. But the crux of the issue was that Randidly was seeking understanding about himself.

Even his most patient version of himself had to admit that sometimes, it was very difficult to achieve an understanding of the self by simply remaining in one place. Using the Fatepiece would cause a reaction. Just Randidly had no idea what it would be.

“But is obsession really the emotion I want to be pursuing in order to understand myself…?” Randidly mused. Yet as he said that aloud, he unrolled the Fatepiece. As he did so, he recalled the notification that he had received when he had obtained it.

Congratulations! You have obtained the third piece of your Fateset, the Visage of Obsession Lvl 1! The Alchemist is differentiated from the common man by one simple truth: he will not stop on his Path until he discovers the key ingredient to create the impossible. Yet even the great Alchemist cannot completely escape the flaws of his mortal coil, at least not without a reagent. The Visage of Obsession is the ever-shifting reflection of the Alchemist’s determination that borders on madness. To a mundane viewer, it is just a painting. Yet to the Alchemist, it is a potent catalyst to cleave the user’s mind from the limitations of a worldly perspective. In the depths of Obsession, reality begins to fragment.

A strong enough desire can warp reality.

Warning: Once usage of the Visage of Obsession begins, its use can only be delayed, never stopped. The user will experience ten trials that will test the limits of his obsession. There will be a cost to passing each trial.

“But what the notification says is true,” Randidly whispered as he completely unrolled the scroll and looked at it directly. To his surprise, it was a rather bland watercolor painting, with the sky being a melty mixture of seafoam greens and robin’s egg blues while the foreground contained an arching orange-red lump. Toward the bottom of the lump, it faded to brown and then black. “I will not stop until I can accomplish the impossible.”

Congratulations! Your Fatepiece the Visage of Obsession has grown to Level 3!

At least it seems like I can gain Levels in my Fatepiece here, even if I can’t do the same with Skills, Randidly mused. I wonder why that is…? Because a Fatepiece has an internal, predetermined growth Path…?

As Randidly stared intently at the painting, he wasn’t sure what he was expecting. But what he began to observe were the slow changes of the color composition of the piece. Stretches of pure emerald expanded and contracted across the top like clouds driven by an overwhelming wind. Flashes of orange and yellow manifested in the lump along the bottom. Gradually, the fuzzy edges of the colors narrowed a bit so each small piece was distinct, giving the mound the kaleidoscope colors of fall.

Randidly paused in his viewing to confirm that the emotional tether was still present. To his relief, it was, but his Absolute Timing Skill gave him a shock in that reprieve; he had been staring at the Fatepiece for almost ten minutes already.

Is this the cost? Randidly wondered. Losing an increasing amount of time without noticing it…

When he once again looked at the Fatepiece, this time he could feel the process of it activating. It was like his attention was like a pitcher of water that he dumped into the painting. He constantly generated more and more emotions and focus which was just dumped into the Fatepiece without end. As his liquid attentiveness was poured forward in an unending stream, the painting gradually began to fill. As it filled, the content of the colors on the Fatepiece began to whirl forward.

Congratulations! Your Fatepiece the Visage of Obsession has grown to Level 4!

The colors along the ground, because it was becoming increasingly obvious that the mound in the foreground was supposed to be the ground, continued to twinkle like stars, orange, red, yellow. The sky was runny like whisked eggs, blues and greens growing amorphous and mixing. Randidly blinked and felt himself moving forward. Or rather the perspective of the painting rolled smoothly forward. Everything was melting together.

Subconsciously, Randidly’s breaths began to accelerate. He leaned forward and frowned deeply at the Visage of Obsession.

Congratulations! Your Fatepiece the Visage of Obsession has grown to Level 6!

What? That notification shook some of the Fatepiece’s hold on Randidly. Wasn’t it Level 4 previously? Did I… really missing the previous Level up…?

Yet while his thoughts had wandered, his eyes had remained on the painting. So just as quickly as he had been shocked away, he fell back into the shifting colorscape in his hands. The blues of the sky were darkening toward royal blue, while the greens were growing paler. And in the foreground… something was approaching. Randidly floated forward over a hill and arrived at an arching stretch of black: a heavy stone bridge.

And standing in front of that bridge was a figure.

Congratulations! Your Fatepiece the Visage of Obsession has grown to Level 9!

Congratulations! Your Skill Absolute Timing (Ru) has grown to Level 172!

It’s been a full day since I started staring at this thing, Randidly chewed on his lip. In the grand scheme of things, a day was worth very little to him. But he expected that the cost in time would continue to steadily rise as he used it. That made his gaze harden a little further. I suppose then, it depends on how effective this is at truly opening my mind… I don’t feel much different yet, but the tests every ten Levels should be the key improvements.

If it ends up being worth it… I might need to go deeper just so time is even more dilated.

But again, Randidly’s thoughts faded away as he refocused on the colors in front of him. The ground gleamed and flashed like a searing river of lava. And the details of the dark figure slowly came into focus.

Yystrix, drawn in heavy and rough strokes that slightly blurred the features that she had stolen from Lyra, looked up at him from the canvas. She smiled sweetly. “Hello, Randidly. It’s been a while.”