While Curiosity was busy blaming herself for having loose lips, Chara was carefully digesting all of the new information she had just learned.

I see… That would explain why perception and movement just kind of… work. I still don’t really get why, but at least I know how…

For Chara, the concept of “imagining” seemed pretty straightforward. Aside from a slightly greater emphasis on visualization, it was no different from what she was already familiar with.

In stark contrast, she didn’t think the concept of “envisioning” could be any less ambiguous if it tried. As a spirit, she understood that there needed to be a way to differentiate between thinking and doing. However, even by Curiosity’s own admission, whether a spirit needed to give explicit acknowledgement, or if a subconscious acquiescence would be enough, could literally vary by a spirit’s level of confidence.

From a biological standpoint, she could understand that this type of ambiguity was actually a form of flexibility, but right now, it was just making her more confused.

Uuu… Envisioning is too confusing. What determines whether or not I intend to act on an idea, how will I know when I’m giving acknowledgment, and what will happen if I don’t…?

Well… Ideally, the answer to that last question should be “nothing.” However, what Curiosity said about subconscious acknowledgment makes blindly believing in this notion seem rather risky…

For example, if I’m in a situation where I’m thinking about moving, but don’t really intend to move, will I have to make a conscious disambiguation, or will my subconscious intent not to move be enough for me not to grant subconscious acknowledgment…?

I should figure this out before trying to cross this corridor…

Unable to come up with any more answers, Chara could only move on to other matters.

One thing that did get cleared up was the culprit behind her inexplicable bouts of anxiety.

The first time it happened, she disregarded it as nonsense and proceeded to expand her perception way past its natural limit. The second time, it was right before she nearly used up all her mana. As it turned out, in both cases, it was later discovered that she was unknowingly courting death!

Based on these experiences, Chara had concluded that her near panic attacks were the result of some kind of danger sense or intuition. Yet, if Curiosity were to be believed, then her intuition might be much more than that.

Ultimately, the ambiguousness of acknowledgment and the potential possibilities afforded to her by her intuition were only of secondary importance. In reality, these instincts were nothing more than safeguards to keep her from falling into an early grave.

If her intuition was correct, then what would truly define her capabilities would be the limits of her imagination.

For me to develop as a spirit, the most important skills for me to develop are my imagination and visualization skills… deduced Chara. There was definitely more to it than just that, but at the very least, she didn’t think she was far from the truth.

The little spirit’s extreme rippling eased, and her swirling speed accelerated into a confident swish. She knew exactly what she needed to do next.

With her newfound motivation, she extended her awareness as far as she could, into the corridor. Sadly, it didn’t reach where the curiosity spirit was waiting for her. That made things slightly more complicated, it meant she would either have to find somewhere to stop, so she could plan out her following moves, or just wing the entire journey, all in one move.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

Chara decided to go for the safer of the two options, stopping halfway.

Decided on her strategy, she moved her gaze towards the top of the cave. She figured that if she took advantage of the crystal’s inclination to converge, she might be able to find somewhere to rest near the ceiling.

Unfortunately, Curiosity was already two steps ahead of her, and had purposefully led her to a place with a low ceiling.

Realizing her previous confidence might have been misplaced, Chara suddenly felt a lot less confident. Forget that bizarre spacial movement technique, she hadn’t even mastered basic floating! So why was she being expected to navigate through this labyrinthine corridor?

After a bit of grumbling, she swallowed her dissatisfaction. For better or for worse, she still wanted to know what lay at the center of this crystal cavern.

After a quick search, she found a suitable place to stop. It was a small opening where four large intersecting pillars were protruding out of the ground in four different directions. What made this spot ideal is that because those four large pillars were taking up so much space, it left almost no room for any other crystalline constructs to grow in between, leaving a small amount of breathing room, where she could take a rest.

Unfortunately, squeezing her way into that area would be a bit of a challenge. Although there were no obstructions in the area between the four pillars, there were many around it. Following the general trend of the crystal cavern, like many of the other giant pillars, these four larger pillars were also branching into many smaller and thinner pillars.

This made it so that if she wanted to infiltrate her way into the sanctuary protected by the four larger pillars, she would have to carefully avoid knocking over all of the frail and delicate crystals surrounding them first.

How troublesome… thought Chara.

Using her experience from racing games, she started devising the most ideal racing line from her current location to the area in between the four pillars. Except, rather than optimizing for speed or taking corners, she was just trying to leave as much space as reasonably possible between herself and any crystals.

She did this, all the while giving herself frequent reminders that she was only imagining, not envisioning.

The next thing to consider would be her shape.

For the time being, Chara had zero plans of trying to emulate the curiosity spirit’s mystifying movement technique. As a former solid, even the mere notion of disintegration made her feel extremely uneasy. She can’t help but have intrusive thoughts like, “What if I can’t reassemble?” and inevitably gets cold feet.

Still, she had to admit… it looked like an amazing skill. Even as a newly inaugurated, inexperienced spirit, this much was exceedingly obvious. Hence, despite her unwillingness, she had already made up her mind to definitely learn it one day. It just wouldn’t be now.

Fortunately, she wouldn’t have to. As implied by the name, the crystalline pillars were well… pillars. And although none of them were perfectly upright, parallel, or even straight, they were at least going up. Thus, as silly as it sounded, the meta for avoiding crystal pillars was becoming a vertical line.

Well… since I’m going to be moving in a direction, I guess there won’t be much point in becoming as thin as a straw… estimated Chara.

Convinced, she started trying to visualize immediately.

A bit further away, Curiosity had been watching with great anticipation as the little spirit’s mana rippled full of thoughts and imagination.

She had never intended to divulge so much information, but since it had already happened, it couldn’t be helped. Now, she was more interested in seeing how the little spirit would handle this difficult situation.

Previously, she had displayed an astounding comprehension ability when she quickly learned how to speak, and later, she displayed even more remarkable critical thinking skills when she theorized about the collapsing cave, even if her conclusion was wrong.

Now that she had been given such a wellspring of information, Curiosity was super curious about what the little genius would come up with next. And by the looks of it, she would get her answer very soon.

Finished with her calculations, Chara’s mana had stopped rippling and become as calm as a lake.

Noticing the tell-tale signs of a spirit taking conscious control of their mana, Curiosity focused her gaze on Baby’s direction with increased attentiveness.

The little spirit’s mana started wobbling uneasily, like it was trying to change shape, but didn’t know how to do it. After a bout of uneasy struggling, she stopped, appearing to have given up.

Suddenly, she started spinning faster and faster, until she had become a spiraling sphere that could roll away at any moment. Once she had reached a decent speed, she slowly started changing her shape, becoming flatter and flatter, until she had become as flat as a pancake!

Note

Most normal “Blossoming Spirit” chapter.