The Elder let him contemplate his future for a few moments, giving time for his last statement to sink in, before firmly taking control of the situation again.

  "Your Path is yours alone. I will do my best to help you and give you advice, but ultimately I can only give you a rough direction. Now it is up to you to slowly inch your way to Eternity. But before that, you must complete your actual quest."

  These simple words had a mesmerizing tone to them, breaking the Owner out of his reverie. Scrambling to take hold of the Mystery, he moved to offer it to the Elder, all the while rambling about what it was.”

  "Yes! I have discovered an extraordinary item, which gives me great power. I want to ask you how you think I should use it! It is very easy to use, you just need to ask for something, then it will make you tired and give you what you asked for. And depending on how much energy you give it and how hard you ask, it will change how much it gives."

  The Elder laughed kindly, but did not move to accept the item, letting it hang idly in the air.

  "I know. I have heard a lot about this Mystery. Word of your Quest has arrived far before you did. While you were slaughtering your way here, I was already considering what to do with it."

  He fidgeted, unsure whether he was being faulted for his slow speed. It was true, it would have been better if he had stayed with his group the whole time.

  However, the faint feeling of shame and uncertainty was immediately crushed by a dispassionate disappointment in himself. He may have just had a difficult conversation, but just because he was reconsidering his entire life's meaning, did not mean he had to act like an impressionable kid. He had earned his Title, and he needed to carry himself with the appropriate dignity.

  "Fate has made a fool of my quest, but that was not something anyone could predict. I did my best according to the information I had, and I stand by my decision. You need to stop doubting me for my bad luck."

  The Sil’piceus were slow by nature, and it was often very difficult to tell what they were thinking, but there were exceptions. For some reason, he felt that the Elder was radiating a proud feeling, as if he was happy that his jab had received such a response.

  "No one can predict fate? Perhaps you are right. No matter, I will stop antagonizing you. You have already proved to be worthy of your Title, and that you can carry it with dignity. Now, it is time to test some of my hypotheses about the Mystery, and ascertain just how powerful and valuable it is. First, have you tested whether multiple people could use it at once?”

  "No? It never occurred to me, I was almost always alone… besides, we need to be so close to it to be able to use it, we would get in each other's way. It is not good for fighting"

  "I am afraid my plans for this Mystery go far beyond using it to fight. Come, we must first make sure my ideas are possible. When I tell you to, you just need to wish for strength as you always do."

  Instead of taking the item himself, the Elder called for one of those who had been watching by the side to approach. He then instructed the both of them to pray for strength at the same time.

  The Owner wondered why the Elder did not do the test himself, but seeing how enthusiastic the volunteer was, he decided not to question it. He simply obeyed, and enjoyed the familiar feeling of unstoppable strength, accompanied by an insidious fatigue. He felt significantly more drained than usual, but that could be explained with how far away he was from the Mystery.

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  His next blow did not do much visible damage to the ground, but the shockwave he felt assured him it would have been enough to break the bones of all but the biggest predators. The volunteers strike, however, only limply impacted the ground, devoid of any power.

  "So, it seems that asking it to multitask is impossible, at least for now. That is unfortunate, but that was not too important to my plans. Now, Number 3, since you volunteered, what do you think we should test next?

  Hearing how the Elder called her, he paid closer attention to the volunteer, eager to see what the third most valuable member of her group would say. Judging by how small and feeble her tentacles were, she probably wasn’t recognized for her physical prowess, and with the thickness of her shell, she couldn’t be much older and more experienced than him either. To compensate for that, her mind must truly be fearsome to justify giving her the third highest priority to resources.

  “I know! We should test whether we can both pray for the same thing to make it stronger! Come, let’s try that! You just need to do the same thing again, and I will wish for you to be even stronger.”

  He threw a questioning glance at the Elder, but other than that he simply went along with the various experiments the newcomer kept proposing.

  He had to admit the tests were well thought out, as he learned more about the limits and various quirks of the Mystery in a few dozen experiments than he had after a decade of intensive use. However, he very quickly lost interest in the results, preferring to simply appreciate the fervent passion that number 3 constantly displayed.

  Sure, knowing that two wishes could be superimposed for a better result was neat, and knowing that he could extend the mysteries range by holding the tentacles of someone touching it was intriguing, but on a practical level it was not that useful to him.

  What he really needed to know was exactly how many prayers he could afford to make in a set amount of time, how strong it would make him, how much his movement speed and precision would decrease because of fatigue…

  He understood it might be invaluable to the Elder, who obviously had other plans for it, but all this was not very beneficial to him. He had already learned just about everything that was relevant to his Path, and had no plans to change his Way on account of all these new discoveries. He could perhaps incorporate a few things here and there, but nothing more.

  This was why he was content to let himself be mesmerized by number 3’s singsong voice, and he fell deep in thought, remembering the Elder’s words. His Quest was about to be finished, so what would he do next? His skills were not valuable to a group,

  If the Mystery was as valuable as he believed it to be, he would need to leave it behind. Would he still be able to fight without it?

  After all this, would he be back to being a normal Sil’piceus, or worse, would he end up being chained by the Mystery, duty-bound by his Title to guard it forever, always putting safety first?

  The Elder was right, there was no way he was going to let that happen. He was proud of what he had accomplished, but he did not want his legend to end here. He did not know how he would do it, but in one way or another, he would fight his way to greater heights, and he would drag his entire race along with him.

  He started cataloging all of his skills, trying to find something he could leverage to fuel his future growth, when he noticed that number3’s voice had lost some of it’s childish zeal, giving way to unabashed nervousness.

  “Good, we roughly know how to use it efficiently, we need to know the limits of what it can actually do. Look at that spot of barren soil, right there where your last strike landed. Now, pray and imagine it returning to its former grassy state. Think of the earth moving back into place, and create a carpet of grass on top of it. Empowering something is not enough, we must see if the Mystery is capable of directly altering reality.”

  He complied without wasting any time, and felt both her’s and the Elder’s prayers superimpose with his, before the Mystery suddenly drained more energy than ever before, causing more than half of his brains to directly fall unconscious.

  The last thing he was able to see, before the rest of his mind completely shut down, was a few blades of grass on the previously barren earth.