After a night filled with dreams of sentient knives chasing innocents around, Gaius woke up at the break of dawn, cold sweat running down his back. It was by no means a pleasant dream, but that’s all they were — just dreams. After folding the blanket that he’d messed up when kicking around in his sleep, the boy wore his tunic, washed up and headed downstairs, where a silver knife and a wooden sculpture were staring at each other. The former was floating in mid-air, while Nexus was sitting on the edge of the dining table, and Gaius couldn’t help but think of an illicit rendezvous in progress.

Nexus turned as Gaius ambled down the stairs. “Good morning, Master Gaius.”

The silver knife tilted its hilt over to him before returning to its blade-down position. The night’s rest had down the boy some good, and Gaius wasn’t all that disturbed by the fact that a knife had just bent forty-five degrees to greet him politely now.

“Good morning, the two of you.” Gaius pondered for a moment, and took out the Terminus from his tunic. He turned to Stone, and with a solemnness that baffled even Gaius himself, said, “Stone, this is your older brother, Terminus.”

The knife quivered, before approaching its larger brother with what looked like caution. After ascertaining (probably) that the Terminus wasn’t going to lash out or bite, the knife somehow managed to relax, flitting back to its original position a second later.

“Stone can’t speak, can it?” Gaius asked.

“Nakama’s been talking to him lately, so he understands language. But without a mouth and the relevant sound-producing organs, it’s not going to speak for the foreseeable future,” Nexus stated.

Gaius eyed the wooden sculpture, which clearly shouldn’t be able to speak either, and then gave up. Turning back to Stone, he said, “Well, you should continue to cultivate and grow. If you’re made from the same material as your big brother, you have the obligation to grow stronger and to protect your mistress well.”

Qi extended out from the boy’s arm and wrapped around a small water bottle. It was around four to five hundred grams, and the boy nodded to himself.

Stone tilted its hilt, but Gaius ignored it and said, “Alright, now lie on your back.”

The knife froze in mid-air for a moment, and then complied. It sank slightly as Gaius placed the water bottle on its back — although the boy didn’t really know which side of the weapon was its actual back — and said, “Weight training. It’s good for you.”

“Is that how it works?”

“I dunno,” said Gaius, “but weight training can never go wrong. Alright, Stone, keep doing…push ups until you’re dead tired, then take a thirty-minute break. After that, do your reps again.”

The knife shook slightly, but under the watchful eyes of Gaius and Nexus, it started to dip up and down slowly. Satisfied, the boy turned to Nexus and said, “How’s the analysis of Scorpio’s arm going?”

“I think it’ll be easier if you saw it for yourself, Master Gaius.” Nexus hopped off the table and headed towards the empty room where Gaius had stored the arm inside.

An ardent golden glow dazzled the boy’s eyes as he entered the room, and Gaius tilted his head away in instinct. “What’s that?”

“The arm melted to become this,” said the artificial intelligence. “It’s a weak fragment of the Human God’s divinity.”

Gaius focused on the golden orb barely larger his arm, and shuddered as he somehow felt an incredible presence occupying the exact spot the orb was at. It dwarfed almost anything Gaius himself had felt before, short of the Demon God’s intervention at the Central Circle’s capital, as well as the Human God’s descent on his familiar spirit.

“That’s weak?”

“Relatively speaking, yes,” said Nexus. “If we were to toss in a dead Constellation into this formation, we’ll get a solid bunch of power out of it.”

“Nice to know, but what’s this little plaything good for?” Gaius asked. “Grabbing a dead Constellation’s body and getting a glorified lightbulb out of it isn’t really much of an equivalent exchange.”

“You can absorb it, much like what you did with the seed of the Divine Ladder, to begin with. Although I would recommend not doing that. You’ll turn yourself into a giant beacon in the eyes of the gods,” said Nexus.

“I’ve already absorbed the Divine Ladder,” said Gaius. “What’s the difference?”

“The difference is that whatever you absorbed back then is a seed of divinity. That’s all. It was separated from the Human God for a long, long time, so much so that Anren can’t trace it,” said Nexus. “However, I’m willing to bet that this little blip of power can be sensed by the Human God if it leaves this house.”

“So, in conclusion, this thing is useless and should be tossed out of the house as soon as possible, right?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“That’s what you meant, right?”

“There are other ways to use it, other than eating it like an apple after lunch,” said Nexus. “Which, incidentally, brings us to the topic I was intending to teach you about for the next few days. Formations. We’ll be wiping away any trace of the Human God’s control over it with a formation and then imbuing it into your Terminus.”

“My Terminus? Not my body?”

“Knowing you,” said Nexus, “you’ll poke your nose in the affairs of the gods sooner or later. Giving you a weapon that can overcome their defences will help mightily, Master Gaius.”

Gaius couldn’t find a way to rebuke these words. He too was getting a feeling that when the madness building up in the war between the mortals and the gods of Orb came to a head, he would be sucked into it, whether he liked it or not. That feeling wasn’t reassuring by any means, and clearly, one reason why Nexus was intent on teaching him about formations was probably because the artificial intelligence had considered this possibility too.

“I don’t like that possibility,” Gaius admitted. “But only fools would bury their head in the sand and hope that the sandstorm ignores them.”

“Exactly. It’s not you,” said Nexus. “Even without my reminder, you would have eventually felt the impending crisis anyway. I just brought it to your attention earlier.”

“You’re not wrong.”

“I’m rarely wrong,” said Nexus. “Now, while we keep this little blip of divinity locked up, let’s get you up to speed about formations. Get yourself comfortable. It’s going to be a long ride.”