The taking off of his two skyislands was a circus. Huge crowds of people had steadily gathered around the resting site of these commercial hubs, excited to be allowed into them. Children sat on their parents' shoulders in long columns, pointing up at the buildings and speaking excitedly at the movement within the buildings.

To his immense relief, there wasn’t much busy work required of him before they would be functional. While Randidly had been slightly indisposed handling his emotional core, the Patron of the Deep and Jotem had been working hard to prepare.

The merchant used his old connections to find many of the fellow businesses that had been steadily pushed out of Malloon by Swacc and his business consortium. He invited these merchants into the skyislands, where they would be able to sell their wares with no oversight from Swacc. He even provided a few samples of ceramics, ornate robes, and specialty foods made by these individuals. Honestly, the variety and quality of the products that had been excluded from the city was staggering. He bit into a scone with relish, his eyes glowing with wicked glee. As far as Randidly could tell, Swacc refused to deal with any people who had even an ounce of self-respect.

To Randidly’s immense relief, the innkeeper that had stood up to them previously agreed to come work in all of the inns he had constructed on the island. And when the anthropomorphic lizard noticed the size of the housing facilities on the islands, he had immediately contacted his family to bring backup.

A slew of lizardpeople showed up in the next seven hours, some of them fully grown, but at least a score being hip-height geckos that often walked on four stick-thin limbs. The innkeeper shrugged at Randidly’s stare. “The children must learn a trade as well. For now, their small bodies make them excellent cleaners and washers.”

Shaking his head, he left the lizardpeople to their frantic preparations and hopped down on the far side of the first skyisland. He had his own role to fulfill. Randidly closed his eyes and pressed his palm against the stone side. His Mana slipped in through the immaculately carved patterns, gradually spreading across the massive facilities and activating the sigils.

Keeping his face impassive, Randidly expanded the Engravings massively from what he had demonstrated to Malloon’s engineer. They crept up through the ground and spread throughout the buildings, guided by his Mana. Not that he wanted to plan some secret trap for Malloon, but he had quickly realized that Freewall’s slow ability to interpret Engravings meant that certain aspects of the skyisland would need to be rather covertly added later. In this case, the framework to provide lighting and air conditioning to the rooms.

Modern amenities will probably be the hidden hook that keep individuals coming back, Randidly’s lip curled up as he guided his Mana into particular patterns. Individualized temperature controls appeared on the walls of every guest room. He could have accomplished the task much more quickly, but he didn’t want to alarm the slew of child geckos now populating his island with a sudden surge of Mana.

Still, in terms of time, it only took fifteen minutes to finalize the process. After patting the skyisland on the side, it rumbled and began to rise. No reason to waste time people could be staring up at the island and wishing they were on it. He heard the shouts of alarm and awe from the crowd as the heavy island began to gain altitude. With a few quick steps, Randidly vanished from that side of Malloon and returned to the farm.

Besides, he didn’t want to hear Jotem complain anymore about how much money the Patron of the Deep was spending to renovate the skyislands.

He found Armel already beginning to shore up the holes in the house. A Bogart with a limp helped him, the foolish young demon sparing Randidly fear-filled glances whenever he thought his ‘instructor’ wasn’t looking. At least this gave Randidly a sense of grim satisfaction. Hopefully, being crushed by the reverberations of that fight will help screw your head on tight. But I am glad you survived.

However, thinking about his own result against Bleak Sky made Randidly’s expression crumple; he still needed to narrow that gap a little more. With events beginning to accelerate in the memory world, he needed to improve himself as quickly as possible.

Randidly knew the best way to improve, as well.

He retired back to his room, a blanket draped across the ripped wall to at least give the semblance of peace to his resting place. He quickly filtered out the noise of Armel’s construction and focused his attention inward. His emotional sea seethed at the brush of his attention, rising with furious waves of fury that crashed against his self-control.

He allowed the emotional force to run its course before he reached into its depths. Although he had mastered all these negative emotions, what that truly meant is that he had unified their power within his own will. But it stretched even his Fidelity of the Ascendant Moirae to its limits. It was a source of energy with much-untapped potential.

To most effectively utilize the emotion, he first allowed it to expend most of its own impulsiveness. Then Randidly could channel it for his own purposes.

From the sea, Randidly began withdrawing thin strands of concentrated emotional energy. His control trimmed down the energy to the smallest size it could maintain without dissipating. From the sea, he spun prismatic threads of emotion. His mind drifted through the best way to solidify the foundation the Grey Creature had started.

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He needed a medium to accomplish his goals for the energy. Although he could develop his own image for the issue, it felt much easier to create a Skill and incorporate it into his Moirae of Ripples Skillset. With that, he would have a crutch to channel the energy and improve very quickly.

Frowning in concentration, Randidly continued to split of gleaming strands of energy and isolate each one. The power contained within the emotional energy hummed through his body. His eyes narrowed at the slight, curling bit of power. It felt somewhat dramatic to frame it like this, but a single strand of this energy he now could create would have reduced his original body to paste. He wouldn’t even need to turn the energy against himself. Just housing the energy would have ripped his muscles and organs to shreds and left his Soulspace a hollowed-out, burnt husk.

That was the heights to which he had now ascended.

Congratulations! Your Skill Infinite Incendiary Filaments of the Dove Moirae (P)(U) has grown to Level 1070!

Once he had ten gleaming threads of power, Randidly began utilizing them. He wrapped the first around his finger, creating a small cap of emotional power over his first knuckle. Then he focused on the emotional energy until he could find the perfect note of violence within its depths. After splitting up the energy, the individual notes were relatively easier to discover. The real trick the Grey Creature had discovered was how to create a symphony of such notes.

However, that was for later. He experimented until he found the correct resonance and then his finger began to flare with power. He lazily waved a finger-

The house shuddered around him. His finger shredded space and produced a powerful burst of wind that blew the blanket from its moorings. With a sigh, Randidly allowed his focus to fall away. Okay, should have seen that one coming. I can’t finish this training here…

A few steps carried him out of the house and across the rough-looking hills in Malloon’s wilderness. He proceeded quickly, moving beyond the limits of his weather modulation grand working and found a granite outcropping being absolutely drenched with rain. Randidly chopped with his hand and created a flat platform on top of the rock and established himself there.

His attention turned inward, to the nine waiting threads of emotional force. He took the next and created another finger cap. A casual gesture unleashed a wave of force that rampaged through the nearby storm and briefly quelled the constant rain.

Right after he activated the fourth thread of emotional force, the notification he had been waiting for popped up in front of him.

Congratulations! You have gained the Skill Intense Emotional Effort (R) Lvl 1!

Intense Emotional Effort (R): You have managed to isolate the emotional side of your energy and convert it into a dangerous energy. Although the compatibility between the emotional force and your various abilities may vary, you can utilize the Skill to increase the effectiveness of all your attacks. Warning, severe incompatibility between the emotional force utilized and the Skill may result in some emotional pain. Efficacy of the Skill increases with Skill Level. Amount of emotional force able to be wielded in a single attack increases with Skill Level. Chance of failure vastly decreases with Skill Level.

Congratulations! Your Skill Intense Emotional Effort (R) has grown to Level 2!

…

Congratulations! Your Skill Intense Emotional Effort (R) has grown to Level 155!

Randidly proceeded with utilizing the emotional caps in the same manner, all the while shaking his head inwardly. Only received a Rare tier Skill, despite all that? No, no, we can’t add such a shabby Skill into my Moirae of Ripples Skillset. Better keep squeezing it.

Once he had exhausted the preprepared emotional threads, he reached back out toward his emotional sea. This time, he didn’t satisfy with just stealing away single threads; he harvested entire currents of emotional force. While he did so, Randidly did take some care to make sure similar character emotions composed each. He wanted to power evolve his Skill, but he needed some easy fodder to do so.

The current contained more emotional notes, but they still came through clearly as he adjusted his emotional state to match them.

These surging veins of emotional potency were an entirely different sort of medium. As he carefully sculpted them to form a gleaming gauntlet of power around his right hand, he felt his Skill beginning to hum with the strain. Skill Levels ups continued to rapidly accumulate. Flexing his empowered hand, he waved it through the air.

The storm grumbled and collapsed, clouds blown away by the casual gesture. A wave of water slapped against some of the nearby hills, the moisture pounded into precipitation as everything else dissipated. With the empowerment of his emotions, natural forces could only flee before him.

Randidly tried not to think about his growing fears that his very presence is poison to the area around him and how this development, while useful in fights, meant that his emotions could literally alter the world.

He seized another emotional current to distract himself, took some time to sense out all the disparate emotional notes within the current, then created a resonance to its core. At his bidding, the emotional power surged and covered the edge of his hand.

The air fizzled slightly. Randidly grinned as he raised his hand. He cut and the world shuddered.

Congratulations! Your Skill Intense Emotional Effort (R) has grown to Level 303!

Recalculating… determining influences…

Congratulations! Your Skill Intense Emotional Effort (R) has evolved into Casting Blades from Insatiable Grievances (M)! Skill Level will be maintained.

Casting Blades from Insatiable Grievances (M): User has tapped into the dark subconscious of an entire world. However, rather than using himself within those dark desires, user has been able to covert and purify those desires into power. An immense well of emotional intensity has been created within the user that can be used to empower other Skills. Familiarity with empowerment increases with Skill Level. Wellspring of emotional force vastly increases with Skill Level.

“Now that’s more like it,” Randidly smiled. “Now let’s push the Skill Level up a bit… and finally check out those reward Paths I received from the Milles.”