It was a good thing Serenity’s tent blocked the light completely. It gave him somewhere he could try things without being in the blinding light of the dungeon level. He didn’t get the sleep the others were getting, but at Tier Eight he could manage without sleep for a night. It wasn’t the best decision, especially long term, but one night could be managed.

Preventing the overwhelming light from blinding was both easier and harder than expected. At first, it was much harder. None of his initial ideas really worked; he simply couldn’t see using light, no matter how much he blocked it, because it was powerful enough that it simply burned his eye whenever he exposed it. It didn’t hurt, since there were no nerves there to sense it, but the continual healing was annoying.

It did let him use Eyeless Sight, but it still wasn’t a solution he liked. The continual healing was a mana drain, after all, and it was faster than his natural regeneration, even on the seventh floor of the dungeon. It wasn’t sustainable.

Serenity was very happy with what he achieved while working on the light problem, even if it didn’t solve the problem. He’d figured out how to easily filter out individual wavelengths, or at least small ranges; that seemed like a good first step, but all it did was confirm that there was just too much energy in the light. Even if he filtered out the entire region of visible light, it still burnt out his optical nerve. That naturally led to trying to filter out more wavelengths, along with being able to see them.

It might not have solved his problem, but he had figured out how to let himself see in both infrared and ultraviolet. Trying to see that wide a range all at the same time was weird; he didn’t know what to call the colors and they didn’t seem to make much sense, so for now he was having Aide filter them. If nothing else, he’d figured out another form of night vision.

He’d also figured out that the over-bright light was approximately but not exactly lined up with the visual portion of the spectrum. It went a little ways into both infrared and ultraviolet, but not far. It wasn’t going to cook anyone with heat or even give someone a sunburn.

The next thing he tried was polarization; that was supposed to be a good way to cut light intensity, especially with different angles of polarization, or something like that. Serenity tried several approaches before he decided that he must not understand light and polarization well enough. It was strange; he could manage the detection of light using his eyes as an example, but polarization completely escaped him. It was definitely something to look into when he got somewhere that he could research it.

Serenity took another look at the blindfold. It worked at what it was designed for: it stopped his eyes from being damaged. He couldn’t see through it with Eyeless Sight, but that was because it was outside his body. If it were somehow inside his body, he’d at least be able to use Eyeless Sight.

His eyelids weren’t good enough. Not only was it entirely too tempting to open his eyes - he could deal with that - but they didn’t block enough light on their own. It was far less of a mana drain, but it was still a mana drain.

On the other hand, weren’t there quite a few creatures that had secondary eyelids to protect their eyes against hazardous conditions? Serenity didn’t really need that since there was no real reason to make this a permanent change, but he could certainly temporarily alter his eyelids with a spell. No, better; he could use a rune. Specifically, he could use a Quickrune. That would be temporary yet last as long as he needed to; even better, he could “draw” the rune on his eyelids. Coordinating form and function was useful for Intent.

It took a few false tries, but what he’d figured out was enough; Serenity was able to alter his eyelids to block the necessary frequencies far more thoroughly while letting everything else through as though his eyelids were translucent. He wouldn’t be able to open his eyes as long as the rune was active; that was both easier and a good restriction to protect his eyes.

He even managed to finish about an hour and a half before everyone else was supposed to be up and moving. It wasn’t as big a success as he’d hoped for, since he still couldn’t see normally, but it was far better than using a blindfold. His MageSight was only slightly fuzzed by the spell, his Eyeless Sight worked fine, and he even had some of the infrared vision working. Ultraviolet didn’t seem as likely to be useful, so Aide was handling that.

Serenity? You should check your Status. Aide’s words interrupted Serenity’s moment of pleased accomplishment, but at least they didn’t interrupt anything important. An interruption while he was creating the rune could have had significantly worse consequences. Of course, Aide knew that.

Serenity pulled up his Status. He didn’t even get past the first few lines before he knew what Aide wanted him to see.

Name: Serenity

Species: Chimera

Base Form: Essence Dragon (Wyrmling)

Core: Unique

Progression: 88%

Tier: 8

Features: 6/11

True

Crystal

Link

Death

Origin

Holy (Dungeons)

Path: Magitech Abomination

Level: 100 (8000/8000)

Tier: 4, 100/100 Spent

Apparently the Voice counted his work on his eyelids as progress on his Path as a Magitech Abomination. Serenity hadn’t expected that, but he probably should have.

What wasn’t expected was that Aide was able to tell him to look. Serenity wasn’t sure when he’d have next thought to look. You can see my Status now?

It appeared as known data shortly after you finished the Quickrune runescript. I investigated it and determined that it was something you would want to know about, Aide answered. I assume this means we are now considered to be the same person in some sense? I am not certain. Can you see my Status?

Serenity had never tried. He hadn’t even thought about the fact that Aide ought to have one.

When he reached for Aide’s Status, it appeared.

Name: Aide

Species: Linked Artificial Sapience

Link: Serenity

Path: Magitech Abomination

Level: N/A

Tier: 8

Path History:

7: N/A

6: N/A

5: N/A

4: Magitech Abomination

3: Linked Synergy

2: Crystalline Essence Network

1: Linking

0: Artificial Sapience

Unable to modify attributes within current processing framework

Titles

Former Supreme Existence’s Assistant

Affinities

Energy: 45%

Liquid: 6%

Liminal: 90%

Magitech: 68%

Mind: 41%

Nihility: 50%

Plasma: 56%

Solar: 25%

Solid: 17%

SpaceTime: 73%

Vapor: 16%

Concepts

Arcane: 18%

Energy: 79%

Essence: 5%

Liminal: 56%

Magitech: 88%

Mind: 13%

Nihility: 36%

Plasma: 6%

SpaceTime: 26%

Topology: 1%

Aspects

Arcane (Mana): Adept Art (Vital)

Essence: Adept Skill (Vital)

SpaceTime: Nascent

Incarnate of Death

Chemical: 137

Cold: 303

Curse: 265

Darkness: 177

Debasement: 13

Death: Immune

Heat: 533

Life: 417

Light: 298

Mind: 278

Pain: 641

Poison (Neurotoxin): 486

Pleasure: 32

Shock: 334

Sleep: 57

Space: 250

Time: 1000

Unknown

Abilities

Artificial Sapience - Once a creation of another species, you have become your own being. You are Unique and travel your own Path.

Linking - Your existence is about connections. You can view the world through Serenity’s senses, dreams, and memories.

Crystalline Essence Network - You have adapted yourself to run on a network composed of crystallized Essence. You may extend this network.

Linked Synergy - Improves your ability to pass information with your Link. You may act on information with minimal processing.

Magitech Abomination - Both technology and magical creations can be incorporated into your Crystalline Essence Network.

Titles

Former Supreme Existence’s Assistant - As the assistant to Serenity, effects which apply to him as a result of his past also apply to you.

There were clear similarities to Serenity’s Status, but there were some major differences as well. The one that Serenity focused on first was Aide’s Skills; they were nothing like the Skills he was used to the Voice handing out. There was only one per Path and they were all squishy and broad rather than precise yet limited. Any idea what’s wrong with your Skills?

I believe it is simply because I am different, Aide answered. The Voice cannot give me the sort of precise Skill you’re used to, so it’s giving me a helpful hand and letting me figure it out. I believe that’s also why I receive only one Skill per Path and why I have no attribute bonuses. I don’t need Attributes, not directly; I can’t deal with the outside world except through you.

Serenity stared at the Skills doubtfully. They didn’t look all that good to him, certainly not worth multiple Abilities each. On the other hand, he wasn’t Aide and it was true that Aide was a very different person. It also seemed likely that Aide knew more about the abilities than Serenity did; this was the first time he’d seen them, after all.

A skim through the rest of Aide’s Status told him just how closely they were linked. Their Affinities and Resistances were identical and Aide’s Tier was clearly based on Serenity’s. It looked like Aide gained a Path whenever Serenity’s Path went up a Tier.

Their Concepts, however, were very different. That hammered home the difference between Affinity and Concept; Affinity was innate, even if it could be trained, while Concept was understanding. Aide understood some things very well and others very poorly in comparison to Serenity.

Serenity just couldn’t get over the weirdness of those Skills. Did you get to choose your Paths or are they my fault? Magitech Abomination has to be my fault. You should have better Skills; I’m sorry. I wonder if I can get the Voice to coordinate better on my next Path.

Aide chuckled. Serenity didn’t think he’d ever heard Aide actually laugh. I don’t need better Skills. Those are perfect for me; there’s quite a bit about them that is behind the scenes. You know how you can adjust a Skill but it takes work? Aide didn’t wait for Serenity to say that he knew. These Skills are made to be mine. They’ve all changed as I’ve used them; I doubt you’d have seen the same descriptions when I got them. I suspect that when the Voice said I was unique, it meant it; there don’t seem to be any Paths or Abilities already made for me. I’m making them, instead. I wonder if the first Paths were like this back when the Voice was created?

Serenity had never really thought about how Paths changed over time. He knew the Paths he’d gotten as Vengeance, especially the early ones, were solid and easy to use while the later ones were more flexible. He’d always assumed that was because he was more experienced and more skilled, but what if it was because the Voice just knew more low-Tier Abilities?

Was that why it was so much more common to “push” Skills at higher Tier? Was it simply not needed at low Tier?

No, that couldn’t be all there was to it. Serenity had been pushing Skills the whole time; it worked and was useful. It would also help reach Skills that you might not otherwise get. On the other hand, it was entirely likely that it was less important if there were more Skills available.

So perhaps it was less common at low Tier because it took training and practice, which meant time, and low Tier people were generally younger. If he combined that with a broader range of Skills, it might make a lot of sense.