Pellex walked into Closeworks and let out a long sigh. Time for some reading. He itched to head into the workshop in the back, but he’d spend hours just reacclimating to the space if he went in there. Before he went up, though, he decided to take a quick look around the shop. It was much the same – the things that hadn’t changed all the years he had grown up here weren’t likely to change in the relatively short time he was away. Thi-bulbs weren’t exactly old technology, but they were incredibly standardized. The centrex board on display did seem a bit different, and Pellex wished he had [Clockwork Inspection]. It had been fairly high-priority on his old plan, but he needed to re-evaluate. He had no idea what the higher tiers of any of the divination trees looked like, and he would still need to work on the skill grades needed to unlock them.

Picking up a phi bracer from a shelf, Pellex turned it over in his hands, quickly activating [Metalshape] to smooth out a small imperfection. His dad had always been the one who made these, as the only one with the skills for phi constructs. Pellex could make them, he’d taken an entire course dedicated to non-thi constructs, but, ironically, his main project had never really required that knowledge, and he could count on one hand the projects that had made extensive use of non-thi power. Setting the bracer down, he walked over to the flashlights. To his delight, it didn’t appear to be much changed from the time he and his mom had cleaned up the older design.

Pellex spent almost 15 minutes wandering through the shop before he remembered the books in his storage rod. Putting an oddly-shaped fan down, he headed all the way up the stairs. The top floor of the Audenry house contained the guest bedrooms, a schoolroom, and a large library. Opening the door to the library, Pellex noticed a large number of blankets. Draped across chairs, hanging from shelves, and propped up by brooms, the fort took up a full quarter of the room, including the lounge chair pushed up against the massive windows. Seeing no other way to his destination, Pellex dropped to the floor and crawled into the haphazard construction.

Letting the blankets fall closed behind him, he tried to look around the fort as his eyes adjusted to the dark. He never even stood a chance. A blinding light erased his vision, making Pellex flinch despite the lack of pain. On the other end of the bright glare, two small voices started giggling.

“I got you!” Monn cried, waving the flashlight around some more. Puev just screamed and jumped on him, almost knocking him into one of the blanket-walled cavern’s perilously unstable supports.

“What a rude way to say hello to your favorite big brother,” Pellex said, putting a hand in front of the light.

“When you went to the big school did you do all the school like Mom said you would and so you are not going to go back?” Pellex’s eyes had adjusted enough to see that Monn was squinting suspiciously at him.

“I feel like I’m the only one who should be squinting around here, given that you didn’t just have a flashlight shined in your face.”

“What’s squinting and when you went to the big school did you-”

“Yes, I did all the school, and I’m not going to go back, and squinting is when you scrunch up your eyes real tight.”

“Okay!”

“Alright then. What about you, Puev, are you excited to see me?” It took a few moments for Puev to think up an answer to that one.

“No!”

“I’m heartbroken. Do you two know where I can find the window chair?”

“That way!” Puev shouted, directly into Pellex’s ear, before taking off deeper into the fort. Pellex crawled after her and found the chair, which she was of course sitting on. This part of the fort having a bit more room, Pellex got on his knees and swung her onto the ground.

“Wooooo!” Puev laughed and tried to get back on the chair, but Pellex was faster. This did not deter her at all, and she crawled on top of him. Opting to ignore her, Pellex looked for something to set a light on, the window blocked by a blanket. Finding a small table within reach, he pulled it closer, and bringing out his storage rod, deposited Iote onto it.

Puev screeched and climbed off of Pellex, trying to get closer to the whirring dungeon core. Pellex grabbed her before she could stick her fingers into the machinery, but Monn, creeping out of the darkness, would have made it if it weren’t for his well-rounded physical stats.

: children :

: i was a child before :

: [Coreflame] :

Judging by the girls’ reactions, Iote had only been broadcasting to Pellex. When it activated its skill, its brightness increased tenfold, making them flinch. Pellex was surprised too, but for different reasons.

“Pellex your ball got brighter,” Monn said, in case he hadn’t noticed. “Can I have a ball that gets brighter Pellex you can make me one right?”

“I want a ball!” Puev added.

“I’ll make both of you a ball later, but only if you let me read my books in peace.”

“Okay!” With that surprisingly easy agreement, Monn ushered Puev into a different part of the fort. Pellex squinted suspiciously at them, then shrugged and turned to Iote.

“You need to declare skills?”

: no :

: i broadcasted to help you understand :

: you wish to understand how things work :

“That’s… quite true. Hmmm. Thank you, Iote. If you wouldn’t mind, could you keep it on while I’m reading?”

: it is low cost :

: no burden to me :

: if you are going to ingest knowledge may i partake :

“Uh, how does that work?”

: i can access skim-thoughts if i am allowed :

: surface level :

“Oh, okay. I learned this in school, let me see if I have it right.” Concentrating, Pellex visualized a thin wall around his skull, the first defense of many. Then he imagined a tiny hole piercing through that wall, and a tiny thread spooling out through it, spinning into the void outside his head. After a few moments, Pellex felt a foreign thread touch his visualization, thought it was more like a tentacle than a string.

“Did that work?”

: you are trained :

: now when you read i will read :

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

: and if you wish to speak :

: you can send it through the tendril :

Pellex imagined a phrase being pushed along that wire, towards Iote.

‘Like this?’

: exactly :

Interestingly, Iote continued broadcasting like he had before, instead of using the link, but Pellex didn’t comment on it.

‘I’ll get to it then.’

Taking the first book out of the storage rod, he cracked it open and started reading.

Divination skills. Knowledge, gained through the system. Where that information came from, no-one knew. Theories abounded, of course, from theoretical terms such as the Akashic Record, to inbuilt System information, to the mind of Divinity Itself. Whatever its provenance, the variety of knowledge was staggering, encompassing seemingly every topic conceivable, and quite a few that weren’t. An untrained child could take [Basic Swordsmanship] and be wielding a blade with a sure hand instantly. A master architect could take [Basic Architecture] and learn things he hadn’t even considered.

Divination varied in reliability – the “proficiency” divinations seemed to draw from some sort of cultural understanding of a field. [Basic Cooking] would teach recipes typical of the society the user came from, and [Basic Artifice] was more useful the more a civilization knew about artifice. However, when cultural understanding failed, the proficiency divinations would still offer some baseline of information, offering an understanding that could be used as a societal jumping-off point for further research into a field.

In contrast, [Prophecy], the [Oracle] class skill, was, 99% of the time, completely reliable, in retrospect. The vague words returned by the skill could apply to a variety of situations, but once they had come to pass, they fit in so perfectly that their applicability was indisputable. Some scholars had postulated that this pointed to different sources for divination, but actual [Oracles] tended to disagree.

In the two books Pellex had that were written by authors with divination classes, they both described their most powerful skills allowing them to touch a separate plane. One they differed on a name for, one author calling it Fate, and another calling it the Tapestry. Both described it as an infinite white expanse, filled with multicolored threads spearing through an unending sky, converging into a massive weave just past the edge of their vision. They described plucking one of these threads and hearing a powerful note, from which they could extract the barest hints of knowledge. Obviously quite different from the place he visited with [Cogsight], Pellex was disappointed that this subject was only lightly touched on, as the authors with divination classes focused on the practical aspects of divining. Fortunately, there were quite a few useful insights there.

The most important one was that the more knowledge one had, the more they could get out of divination. This was true both functionally and practically. Knowing more about something would guarantee more detailed and accurate information about it from divination. Pellex wasn’t sure how it would work with [Cogsight], but he had yet to actually test it with an item he knew well. On the practical side of things, knowing more about a subject would make divination more fruitful, as one could focus their efforts. Hard to divine an assassination plot if one didn’t know to look for it.

There were other pieces of advice, too, though more esoteric. Divination sight skills, like [Detect Thi] or [Runesight], could be forced to act through other senses with enough effort of will. Useful if one was constantly working with extremely high levels of whatever was being shown. Another interesting thing to know was how time-based divination interacted with other time-based divination. According to the books, if one altered their fate enough through information gained in time-based divination, they would cause ripple effects that would leave them and those whose fate they altered completely invisible to those diviners who looked at the future, and also to certain methods of looking at the past, at least for a short time. Pellex didn't know of any other diviners who might require him to consider this problem, if he could even figure out future sight, but it was good to know.

Other than that, there were a few practical minutiae that weren't incredibly important, but were useful on the technical side of things. Notes on how the environmental thi stressors affected divination, which were mostly useful to [Ritualists], but would still affect skills somewhat. Some theories from the authors about potential classifications of divination skills, and a section on what fate meant that was of philosophical interest, but didn't dramatically alter Pellex's view of the world or anything. [Prophecy] was incredibly accurate, but it was vague, and focused on touchstone moments for people. The more information a divination skill gave, the quicker its accuracy dropped from the date of divination. Fate was the expected route, but people did deviate all the time, and diviners were often left cleaning up massive messes left behind by that.

That brought Pellex to the book he had on why divination was so rare. The editorials collected in the volume were highly subjective, filled with personal political opinions, simple inaccuracies, and statements that were often outright contradicted by other editorials, but Pellex could assemble a cohesive picture. This was several hundred years ago, in the time of High Adjudicator Eor. The Scourge was soon to come, the Dark Prince Fulminar had conquered Kovl, and the Golden Hordes would still sweep from beyond the States, millions of monsters so powerful that many thought they were the reasons the walls the States were built around had been originally constructed. That theory was widely disregarded nowadays, given the Hordes' failure to come for almost two hundred years, but they were still incredibly powerful.

In response to the Hordes, powerful people emerged, high leveled and heroic, saving lives, discovering incredible things, and changing the world. And divination was suffering for it. Heroic people could be accounted for. If they didn't have a divination class, which barely any did, they often followed the flow of fate only slightly less than most people. Even those whose lives they affected were accounted for. But the problem wasn't the heroes, the adventurers, the high leveled swooping in to save the day. It was the environment that created them. Desperate times create desperate people, and on the outskirts, when all hope was lost, when no-one was coming to save them, people fought. They fought against fate itself, and when an entire town, or a caravan fighting bandits, or even just a mother protecting her children fought against fate, fate lost.

Divination simply failed to work, providing results completely invalidated the next day by someone who simply hadn't died when they were expected to. Fate was accurate at the moment of casting, but it would have been invalidated only moments after. With divination no longer being accurate, the divination classes became less powerful, less useful, and less profitable. There were non-time-based divination skills, from what Pellex had seen, probably even most of them, but [Prophecy] was the [Oracle] class skill. The draw to the class, much like flying being the draw for [Aviarist] or teleportion being the draw for [Spatialist], was futuresight. When people choosing their class believed that [Oracle]'s main skill was useless, even if that skill was just the flashiest application of its powerset, it fell to the wayside.

And after the Hordes were gone, the Scourge had been contained, and Eor died, and fate regained the cohesiveness of peace, few people even fulfilled the requirements. The skills in [Divination] were useful, but often only one would be taken, to complement an existing skillset. Pellex was rare both in choosing two and in those being big enough thi users and used often enough to meet the thi requirement. A rather boring mystery, but a deep shadow cult suppressing divination to make sure their forecasts were perfect was a bit too much to ask.

The other books were quickly skimmed, being lists of some higher tier skills Pellex could expect, and system definitions of a few terms. Pellex would be replanning his build later, so he would look at them more in-depth then, though it was missing a few trees that he was interested in, which could be a problem. But then, he had become a [Cogseer] by making an impulsive choice based on little information, so continuing that strategy wouldn't be unfitting.

Turning to Iote, he sent a message over their link. It was something he had had much opportunity to practice as he read, as Iote would ask questions for Pellex to answer, and Pellex would mentally add his own comments to the books. It was an interesting way to read, and Iote had a surprising amount of knowledge, with curiously-placed gaps.

: already done :

: reading is good :

: we should read more often :

‘Any thoughts?’

: i wish to learn more of the system :

: how humans perceive it :

: but that can :

: must :

: be later :

: if you attempt divination i believe you could consolidate your insights :

: and perhaps glean new ones :

: i would be grateful to watch :

‘I was planning on doing some practice right after this, yeah. I’m curious to see if you’ll notice anything I don’t.’

Pellex was in the middle of formulating another message when Monn and Puev ran in.

“Pellex your new friends are here and they got lots of shiny clothes!”

“Well, we should probably go see if they need any help getting settled in, then!”

‘We can get to practice right after that.’

: assuredly :

: i have much to contemplate :

Placing Iote back in the storage rod, Pellex crawled out of the fort and headed for the guest bedrooms, flanked by the girls, who had remembered his promises very well, and didn't hesistate to remind him.