Randidly watched Lady Iellaya rush up the hill without comment for three reasons. Then he sighed, shook his head, and began to walk in the direction of the longer path, leaving Lady Iellaya alone in this area of karma. He left the burned-out grass and the fading arrays behind him, creating some space between the two of them.

The first reason he didn’t bother to try and stop her was because of the Philosopher's Key. During the process of remaking Lady Iellaya’s Class and Fate, he had gained a few more Levels in the Fate, so that he was now Level 64. But he also felt completely drained after utilizing the Fate. So much so that Randidly simply didn’t have the energy to comment at all on the changes that he had sensed within either of their images after working with them with the key.

Looming on the horizon was the distant sensation of how difficult getting the last third of his Fate Levels might be. Because his Fate was capped at 100. So he would need to have a near-perfect understanding of the image within the key in order to reach it. It was a daunting project.

At least the image won’t change… Randidly shook his head as he reached the low valley along the dirt path. Randidly saw that he saw there was quite a bit of winding path down through the valley before he would reach the tunnel to the next area. Yet what could Randidly do but continue to walk forward? If Lady Iellaya wanted time alone to refamiliarize herself with her capabilities, Randidly was going to inspect the tiered karma of this memory.

The second reason that he didn’t attempt to stop Lady Iellaya was that Randidly had once more gained quite a bit of knowledge about the System and how it worked. With this knowledge, another attempt like this would be even more smooth. Other, more daring attempts were possible. Even now, Randidly was curious about examining some of the other mechanisms of the System and theorizing how he could unlock them.

Would the unlocking fail without the consent of the System…? It was possible. But it might just be a matter of mental strength...

Eventually, Randidly found the tunnel and began to proceed forward. Now that he had started this road, he saw no reason why he should waver from the long path. It was now just a matter of walking forward while Randidly slowly unpacked what he had learned from assisting Lady Iellaya.

As for the third reason that Randidly didn’t stop her… it was the one that overshadowed the others. It could be said that it was the true reason. It was because he was afraid he had made a terrible mistake. Because Randidly had added something to Lady Iellaya’s new inner bouquet of images that hadn’t been there before. Of course, Randidly had distantly known this was likely, but he hadn’t worried overmuch about it occurring. After all, Lady Iellaya’s images had much more time to develop than his own. So anything he could add would just be suppressed by the images that had been originally present.

That was what he had assumed, anyway. Yet as Randidly shaped the potential, he had the strange sensation that something had slithered out of him and into her, burying itself in that potential. At the time, the sensation was fleeting and Randidly almost doubted himself. Plus, his attention was focused on so many places that he gave up when he didn’t sense any of his images present in her.

A weird blip, but this was a weird and messy project.

While it turned out to be the case that none of Randidly’s own images had snuck into Lady Iellaya during that remaking process, by the time that he had noticed this shadow of an image coming to fruition, it was already too late.

Staring down the long, dark tunnel, Randidly could only shrug and accelerate to a light jog. Once it had time to grow within that base of potential that Randidly had condensed within Lady Iellaya, Randidly had recognized it. Or at least, he thought he did.

The weird thing was, it wasn’t even a real image that had slipped into Lady Iellaya. It was a memory of an imagined image. It was the shadow of greed and need that Randidly had seen in the strange dream he had imagined as Ileot explained who the original Vualla was. It was that vast darkness that would steal away other’s lights in order to be more powerful. It was a black rose that was now deeply rooted in Lady Iellaya’s chest.

Or at least… that was Randidly thought it was. It was definitely similar, but it wasn’t possible to say for sure if it was exactly the same. After all, it was an image that Randidly had imagined once. It had been powerful, sure, but he didn’t have a deep impression of it.

By the time that Randidly finished working with Lady Iellaya, it was already too late to remove it. It had used all the gathered potential as fertile soil and bloomed. Perhaps the most confusing this was how naturally it seemed to fit into Lady Iellaya. It was like she had been made for such an image. Perhaps her image was cut from a similar cloth, but still…

Randidly’s thoughts swirled in circles as he continued to jog forward down the long tunnel. Had he imagined it? Was it really just a part of Lady Iellaya’s image that he had given the opportunity to grow? That was certainly the more likely option. After all, Randidly might have a connection with the duplicated Vualla, but that was from a Nether Ritual. He hadn’t directly given her Aether yet, although he acknowledged he probably would soon in a controlled way, to try and see if Ileot had been honest about her sensitivity to other forms of Aether.

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He had only imagined the image. How could it have been present in Randidly?

...although I only know the duplicated Vualla’s Aether… Randidly’s eyes narrowed. ...I don’t know enough about karma. But a duplicated version would definitely be connected to the original, wouldn’t they…?

Also, was it something that Randidly should let distract himself? If it really was a problem, wouldn’t Lady Iellaya have noticed? And she seemed immensely pleased as she hurried up toward the shorter path, albeit with a deep suspicion toward Randidly. It was clear by the end that she was not quite comfortable with the experience, but content with the result.

Not that Randidly blamed her. This Fate was his own and he still wasn’t super comfortable with what it could do.

At some point, Randidly had been jogging for such a long time that he was thoroughly sick of repeatedly scrutinizing this imagined life path for the original Vualla versus the strange darkness that he saw in Lady Iellaya. The sound of his feet against the stone was his only company in the lonely darkness of the tunnel. And honestly, it was a rather poor travel buddy.

As though it had sensed Randidly’s thoughts, Acri slithered down around his arm and cooed from attention. Chuckling, Randidly settled Acri back against his arm. “Yea, I know. I’m not alone here. But this place…”

His words didn’t even echo in the darkness. Around him, Randidly could feel the strange construction of karma being spun as he moved forward. Yet his senses couldn’t detect much. He would need to use the Philosopher’s Key to feel the finer points of the karma, but he was still too mentally exhausted to attempt to wield that tool.

So Randidly continued to jog. After what felt like six hours, he emerged from the tunnel and looked up at a mountain proper. He followed the winding path to the sign and then took the longer path route. This time he had to walk down the gentle slope of the valley and the wade across a sluggish river before he found the tunnel.

This tunnel was suitably large, more like one million great halls lined up in a row than a tunnel proper. There were vaulted ceilings that Randidly could only barely witness and high stone pillars that led him continually deeper through the bowels of the mountain.

So Randidly pondered the image in his Philosopher’s Key and jogged. At some point, he became somewhat fed up and accelerated into a dash, but that didn’t last very long. Or at least, in the space of this place, it didn’t last long. Perhaps he ended up dashing for six hours, but it really didn’t feel like his speed affected his traveling speed. Which obviously was impossible.

But it felt like it was the case.

So he returned to a jog.

At the mouth of this tunnel, with his Absolute TIming informing him that he had spent two days jogging to traverse the distance, Randidly looked up at a mountain that ripped upward through the clouds like the spine of the largest dragon in the world. It was a ruggedly beautiful mountain, all jagged peaks and tantalizing mists. It was the sort of mountain that stirred up a deep urge to climb upward and witness the world above the sky.

“Probably a bitch to scale though,” Randidly muttered to himself. So he turned away from the mountain and took the left path again. Yet as he did so, he paused.

This time the sign was different. This time, the left was labeled ‘the longest path’.

“About damn time,” Randidly sighed. Then he broke out into a jog once more and followed the meandering slope of the mountain around until he reached a ravine. There he had to walk directly up the dried riverbed, clambering over boulders, until he found a dusty mountain trail. That trail led around the side of the mountain… to a tunnel.

So Randidly entered the darkness once more.

This darkness was so complete and vast that Randidly felt like it would be extremely easy to get lost in here. He couldn’t see or sense the walls, roof, or the original entrance he used to arrive at this darkness. Very soon it was just him and the sound of his footfalls once more.

Those noises kept Randidly focused. Time dragged, but he wasn’t impatient. It had been a while, but Randidly had abundant experience with forcing himself to perform tiresome tasks long past when he wanted to stop. If something like this was enough to exhaust him into giving up, Randidly would not have gotten near where he had. Not by a longshot.

Shal would be so proud, Randidly thought sourly as he continued to jog.

A week passed, jogging in the darkness. There were times that Randidly felt like he should alter his strategy, but he kept himself calm. If nothing else, this place would eventually collapse on its own eventually. Hard to know with karma interfering in time when that would be, but it would be a hard escape. So for now, Randidly ran.

Besides, Randidly felt like it was never about finding the right path. It was about making the choice and then following through. As long as he kept moving, his feet were on the right path.

It was a week and 22 hours before Randidly opened up from the tunnel to underneath a stormy sky. Low clouds seemed positively looming as he walked down the path toward the familiar sign. But this time, there was no split. There was just the affirmation once more.

The longest path.

Randidly looked up toward a mountain so large that it was difficult for him to see the sides of it. Its stony face filled up his whole vision like a granite wall along the horizon. It was honestly difficult to imagine how far up into the sky the peak was. And the air around the mountain was heavy with an incredible pressure. One that was even more powerful than the pressure around the hill that Lord Miln and his protege had chosen to ascend. Acri raised his hand and tilted his blade in askance toward Randidly.

Twisting his mouth, Randidly shook his head slightly. “Honestly, this isn’t my image at all; I still think it’s pointless. You too. This is not your path. But you know…” Randidly reached down and lightly tapped Sulfur. “How about you? All you do is wait and endure. Do you think you can inherit some of this power?”

Sulfur shivered in anticipation as Randidly began to steadily walk up the mountain path.