“You should have killed them, Master Gaius.”

“True. But letting them leave like this serves a greater purpose,” replied Gaius. He was flying at an even faster speed then he was used to, which had something to do with the changes in the Stellar Core and the power he’d stolen from the Human God’s avatar.

“You’re beginning to sound like my previous master. All cryptic and mysterious.”

“Just taking a leaf out of your book, Nexus.” Gaius did a barrel roll, scattering a small cloud that he’d thrown himself into. “I mean, even if I just wanted to maintain my sanity, it’ll still be a greater purpose, after all. Of course, I do have a greater purpose in all this — to establish a myth.”

“You plan to…”

“Turn Heritage into a place to gather renegades and rebels. The face I wore just now was the same that I used when killing the Human God’s avatar,” said Gaius. “Word will surely spread, from the group we allowed to leave.”

“You seem to have thought through a lot of things in the past few hours.”

“Yes. For my safety, Yong Yue’s passing must be delayed as much as possible. I’m quite sure Anren knows that he’s based in Heritage, and if we have the assassin who killed his avatar appear here…” Gaius’ voice trailed off.

“Too many things has his fingerprint inside for the Human God to not think otherwise,” said Nexus.

Gaius nodded. “Correct. So long as there’s a greater threat — the Monarch of Shadows — that god will allocate far less resources to tracking me. And the mortal forces on Orb that oppose him, like the North, East and West would get more breathing room.”

“That may not work out as you planned though, if the Human God is forced to watch every single entrance in and out of Heritage. He might find the idea of taking over every entrance more appealing than ever,” replied Nexus.

“He would be making an enemy out of everyone, then. And I’m quite sure that the Map of Stars actually allows me to relocate back to the Library anytime I need it,” said Gaius.

“At a cost, however.” The little wooden figurine popped its head out, the rest of its body tucked underneath the cloak. “Well, you seem to have your plans all laid out…everything except for your own.”

Gaius turned his head slightly, so that Nexus’ wooden substitute was in view. “What do you mean?”

“Your personal strength, that’s what I mean.”

Gaius landed onto a snowy mountain peak in silence. “Your words have made me think about some doubts I’d been harbouring for a long time. I’m very clear that there’s a definite link between cultivation, artificing and formations. But not everyone knows that. What they do accept, however, is the so-called absolute truth that these three aspects of life work in a certain way, because it just does.”

The wooden figurine pulled itself out of the cloak, before jumping onto the snow-covered ground. “Master Yong Yue was indeed thinking along these lines. A project that never got far.”

The little boy thought back to Nakama and the others, back at Heritage Basestation. He’d found it somewhat jarring when they understood that certain things — a pathway for instance — would result in a set outcome, but they never really bothered about why these results would occur.

“There’s something like an innate desire to ignore the true workings that form the foundation of say, artificing,” Gaius added on, choosing his words carefully. “And although I never really noticed it at first, it’s become obvious from my viewpoint over time. People avoid thinking about it, as though as there is some mental suggestion in their minds that tell them that there’s no need to think about why things work that way.”

Nexus sat down on the snow, its crudely-made face staring at Gaius’ own. “I see why my former master regarded you so highly now. He too faced this problem more than a century ago, when he started out on artificing. He wanted to upgrade my cognitive abilities — my intelligence and sentience already at its peak when he stumbled across the Library — but was unable to do so successfully.”

“It was a common issue throughout the line of succession,” said Nexus. “Master Yong Yue took three to four decades to overcome his aversion towards researching the principles that guided artificing, and even longer to overcome his mental block on cultivation. But it seems that you aren’t affected by it.”

“I’m affected by it, just in a different manner,” Gaius corrected. “I’m feeling some induced inability to comprehend the principles behind sigils…as though as I’m a student who can’t excel in a certain subject for an unknown reason, despite studying really hard for it.”

“That’s one hell of a metaphor, but I can’t get my head around it.” The wooden figurine shook its head repeatedly.

Gaius frowned. “I guess…I know, imagine you couldn’t use the Map of Stars to look at a certain area, despite being able to use it anywhere else.”

“Me specifically?”

“Correct. After all, isn’t the Map of stars part of your cogitative architecture?”

Nexus stopped shaking its head, and peered at Gaius oddly. “Where did you hear these words from?”

“It just popped up in my mind.”

“An assassin knows words like these?” The figurine kicked at the snow, sending little puffs of white into the air. “Colour me surprised.”

“Who knows.” Gaius shrugged. “No one’s going to do much assassinating in middle age, after all. Probably read a few books on psychology and whatnot at that age. But my point is that it feels like I’m just blocked out from that aspect altogether. It’s been diminishing ever since the second time I got here, so…”

His voice trailed off.

“After you took in the core of the Divine Ladder…” Nexus added on. “Only a god can resist another god’s influence, which means that this entire phenomenon is caused by a god? How odd.”

“The Human God, maybe?”

“Impossible,” Nexus replied decisively. “If that’s the case, your ability to understand the principles behind artificing shouldn’t have been improved, since the Human God’s power would not hamper other phenomena whose origins are the same, which was why you were able to get close to him in the first place.”

Gaius thought back to the moment when he dashed towards the Human God’s avatar. The world itself had frozen, but the little boy had managed to break free from the overpowering influence somehow. Odd. The Divine Ladder had enabled me to resist the Human God’s power…does that mean…?

“I see,” said Gaius. “We can therefore conclude that another god is preventing us, and by extension people here from understanding the basic principles. Why would someone do this?”

Nexus rolled a little snowball. “These are the kinds of questions that require an epiphany to answer. Keep an eye out for clues as we move on — this world is not as simple as you otherworlders like to assume…even for me.”

“Yeah.” Gaius laid down on the snow, and waited for the last day of this week’s Harvest to pass.