The new celestial object depicted by the floating image was quite a bit larger than the moons, although not as much as the planet itself, it looked like a black round ball with cracks in its uneven shiny surface and white light leaking from them. It was surrounded by a thin , uneven layer of that white light which seemed to leak into space in long and thin wavy plumes.

“Interesting… I’ve been looking at the moons a lot while I flew around and not seen that anywhere in the sky, but it would make sense that a black ball would be hard to see… Especially if it’s far away.”

The surface clearly looks solid but it’s also on fire… It’s weird. Like a black half-planet half-sun? The fire trails definitely remind me of the sun.

Wait…

“A black Sun?”

Like the [Spine of the Black Sun]?

There might actually be a link here. I know some of the advanced skills I get are based on existing skills like the Rot or Lead the Dead. So for the spine to reference a Black Sun out of nowhere…

The keywords… Solar Soul Spine, I think it was.

“I identified the spine back then… It’s old logs but they should still be stored…”

Sofia spent a good three minutes searching through her system logs until she found the very old [Identify] notification from the days she and Alith were stuck in Zangdar.

Two of them actually, one wildcast and one not.

[Spine of the Black Sun] : An invoked mana weapon, it contains a mix of holy and undead properties. The wielder regains some life when hitting their enemies with it.

[Spine of the Black Sun] : A versatile mana weapon in the shape of a vertebral column. Do not be fooled by the holy bursts of light; its true nature is that of a hungry predator. Reaching through the planes, it gnaws at the soul and life essence of its victims to feed its wielder.

Item level : 1. Grade : Flawless.

“Gnaws at the souls and life essence…”

I know Alith said the spine also has a spiritual body unlike most regular weapons, which is why it can deal soul damage. The solar bursts are also both physical and spiritual.

“Well. There might not be a link. But there might be one… Also… A black Sun… The Sunless… It’s worth looking into, at least. I should try to get a better look at the spiritual body of the Sunless, too, could be interesting. I wasn't really paying attention last time I used the graveyard to flee from the amalgam.”

In any case, this thing must be important to the trial in some way, or it wouldn’t be on the map, right?

Sofia spent a while trying to find more buttons or ways to interact with the image, but even with the help of the engineer skeleton, the most she managed to do was to turn a small dial to revert the image to the previous states. Once she felt she had dried up the room of its value, she returned to the ‘empty’ bedroom.

The Dragon’s room.

It hadn’t changed. Just standing in there gave Sofia a headache. Closing her eyes, she walked around in the ‘empty’ room. She half expected to bump into invisible furniture, but it seemed the place was well and truly empty despite the conflicting signals her brain sent her.

She opened her eyes again and looked at the blank walls as she spun in the middle of the room. When she looked in a certain corner, she felt something weirder than even the strange feelings she had until then.

Did I find something?

Staring at the spot which was just one of the corners of the room, Sofia walked closer. Somehow, this corner felt different.

It’s me. Is what her brain was telling Sofia, which she had a hard time making sense of.

“It’s me?”

Staying in the room was messing with her head, slowly her mind was starting to blank, so she hurriedly exited the anomalous place and sat in the corridor waiting for the growing headache to relent.

How can I make sense of this?

Sofia remembered how she felt when she looked at the picture. She could clearly tell she was seeing ‘a man’ despite not actually seeing anything. So, naturally, if she could see herself…

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“A mirror?”

Standing back up after a good minute of resting, Sofia went to check the corner again. It still felt like she was looking at herself.

There’s definitely something going on here.

Yet, Sofia could touch the corner of the wall, there was nothing there. Next she tried gradually coming closer and closer, and when her head was too close to the corner, the strange feeling actually stopped.

So a mirror propped against the corner. When my head went past it the sensation stopped. It’s really like it’s here and also not.

I wonder if I could do something with more light…

I’ll be fast so as to try not to break all the electricity machinery…

Sofia took out her strongest lightstone and dumped a bunch of mana inside it, holding it in front of her while facing the ‘mirror’.

The way the new light source lit up the room was somewhat uniform, but as Sofia moved it around, she could clearly spot weird distortions everywhere.

Wait… Is the ‘mirror’ actually reflecting some of the light?

The corner behind the supposed mirror was a tiny bit darker than the rest of the room, it was subtle, but she was purposely looking for anomalies so it stood out a lot in Sofia’s eyes.

It seems fair to say things that have been erased still exist in some way.

One of the thoughts Sofia had was that perhaps things had just been sent to the deep, and that she could somewhat feel them due to her affinity with ‘seeing creatures of the deep’

I would need the opinion of someone else to know what they can and cannot see. Where do I find someone to come here and give me a hand? I don’t know if I can track down Astelia…

Sofia had to leave the room again.

Give me a hand…

This one thought kept running through her mind. Strangely so.

Strangely enough that she was starting to wonder if there was something wrong with her. Besides the usual stuff.

Give me a hand. Give me a hand. Why is that stuck in my head like this? I’m starting to go crazy…

Give me a hand…

A hand… A helping hand.

Something clicked in Sofia’s brain. She hurriedly removed her Dragon-scale arm and stared at the black lace glove that she almost never took off. It was just a permanent part of her outfit that she almost never thought about, but she remembered its description clearly.

[Inquisitor’s apology] : Wearing this direct link to the Inquisitor will collapse conceptual probabilities. Cannot be damaged. Soul-bound.

Collapse conceptual probabilities.

If the concept is ‘existing’, and the probability is it might exist or it might not. Then that would be a good description of the state of the mirror, wouldn’t it?

What does collapsing a probability mean?

Collapse means to fall, crumble, compress, or fold. That’s still hard to apply to a probability…

Sofia stood up, carrying her scale arm with her left hand, she entered the room again and walked to the mirror corner. Slowly, she extended her hand forward. As her fingers pierced through the air, she felt something. The cold touch of a glassy surface. Then came a weird sound, like broken glass heard through a wall. Sofia’s mind blanked for a second, then she came back to her senses, looking at her own reflection in a tall ornate mirror propped up against the corner of an empty room.

No fucking way!

THIS IS WHAT THE GLOVE REALLY DOES!

The Inquisitor’s apology.

The power to bring back what he took away.

The obvious next step was to immediately take out the picture of the admins.

Sofia touched it, but nothing happened, she still couldn’t look at the man in the picture. No?!

Oh, the frame!

Sofia almost fumbled and dropped the frame as she turned it around to free the picture from within. The image on thin paper now free from its casing of wood and glass, Sofia's gloved finger touched the non-existent face of the third admin. There was another sound of broken glass, fainter, this time, again scrambling Sofia’s mind, and when Sofia’s attention focused on the image again, she could see it.

The third administrator.

It had been a while since anyone had seen that face, I bet!

He’s rather handsome, I have to say. The three admins all look really good, honestly.

Did it free the actual administrator, though? Doubt so… After all, the mirror appeared when I touched it but not the whole room.

So… Should I add ‘rescue the Dragon administrator’ to my to-do list? It does sound like a job only I can do. Assuming he’s lost in the deep somewhere in the same state as his things… Well, one thing at a time. Still, though, that’s a GIGANTIC bargaining chip with the system that I just got.

And it’s pretty clear that this place is completely cut off from the main system somehow, so as long as Mr. Scribe doesn’t spill the beans, we’re good.

Just in case someone was actually monitoring her thoughts, Sofia tried to remember her conversation with Sen which was technically protected. She could remember it just fine, meaning it was unlikely that someone from the system was observing.

I might just need that bargaining chip with what I’m about to do at the end of the trial, if reciting an error code and calling for the name of an Admin doesn’t do the job. I trust Mr. Scribe, though, so I probably won’t need it, but it’s good to have.

Now, now… “Let’s unfuck this entire room!”

Sorry Aphenoreth, but you gave me the ability to do this, so if you know me you should have known I was going to use it!

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