“You know what, Adelheid?”

“What?” her little sister didn’t turn to face her, watching her shadows work with the two other pens she had mysteriously acquired by now. The girl was still pouting over her lack of success with the search so far—somehow even more so than Malwine herself.

“I’ve been thinking about it more and more,” Malwine started. “I can make panels that say whatever I want… What’s stopping them from being functional, though? I wonder if I could make them functional.”

“Maybe.”

Granted, perhaps the actual four-year-old was not the best person for Malwine to be having this conversation with, but she wasn’t exactly swimming in options for such discussions. The only people she’d been even remotely honest to were the toddler before her and the annoying man she’d talk to once the next month arrived.

“What sort of Skill would you like? I want to imagine one,” she asked of her sister.

“I don’t know. But {Implicit} is lonely, with there being nothing under the thing.”

“I see,” Malwine furrowed her brows in concentration—as genuinely as she could, in any case. For someone who believed she excelled at making stuff up, she had no idea where to begin. She thought of looking through the Skills she had in , but those were lacking. Perhaps the ones under would be better, given how they now shared {Implicit} as the Root there…

What were the Skills Matilda’s books had?

If she couldn’t have the books back, perhaps the memory would do, but recalling that was a struggle, given how she had avoided selecting any. Malwine remembered only one of them hadn’t been a passive, and it had not struck her as genuinely defensive in the slightest.

What the hell was it? Something about stars?

[The Star]

Draw all attention in a room(?) to yourself for X seconds.

Oh, that will do. Probably. If it’s inaccurate, that’s not my problem!

“One of the Skills I saw on Matilda’s books was something like this,” Malwine said, pushing the panel forward so her little sister could see it.

Adelheid looked away from her remote scribbling for once. “I like it.”

“Good. Maybe you can grab it once we have the books. Because we will find them,” Malwine said encouragingly. She moved to dismiss the panel, but Adelheid raised a hand.

“No!” she sounded surprised by her own reaction. “Leave it there. Maybe it can be real, if I look at it for a long time.”

Malwine just took a page out of the girl’s mannerism books and nodded. “Okay…”

She resettled on her bed. Today, she had successfully fended off Anna Franziska’s attempts at a second lecture by complaining about the lack of more colors—something Adelheid was backing her in, presumably in order to not-steal even more of the coloring pens.

“I’m going to leave it right there,” Malwine mentally begged [Multitasking] to handle it for her, considering she certainly wouldn’t be able to remain focused on it. “I’ll be meditating if you need anything.”

Adelheid simply continued gaping at the panel, unblinking.

Then as much as she hated to, Malwine glanced within her core. It looked horrible—somehow, it had organized itself! Her decorations were all gone!

She hoped this would not be a trend with each rank up, genuinely so. She’d put effort into her original core. Now all that remained were her four Roots, and the glowing mana that mimicked a small sea at the bottom of her core, as if she’d poured the color-shifting liquid into a bowl.

The widow had been fond of the idea of walks in the beach, and that stood at the center of why her visualization had started like this, once—it was little more than an unfortunate coincidence. Malwine hoped she never crossed paths with anyone who could see cores, because this would be a pain to explain in a world where people lived in fear of the concept of ‘the waves’.

{Legacy}’s Root had changed, looking suspiciously like a chair now. She supposed that was what she deserved.

“Hey, {Legacy}. Feel like giving me some extra numbers on the Mana Sources thing? As you usually do, when you feel like it? Come on, we got to the Mortal Esse!”

Despite her performance of the now-familiar ritual of yelling at her Affinities, {Legacy} showed no reaction. Malwine huffed. “Fine. Go ahead and only grow when you pull the urge to out of your nonexistent ass.”

She proceeded to sit on her new chair. It was surprisingly comfortable, in no small part thanks to {Vestige} forming a nice cushion within it. Her three smaller roots clung to the greater one, and she couldn’t help but wonder how this tree thing was going to work in the long term. If there was a stage called Formation of Tree Veins, Malwine could only assume that meant there would be a tree involved at some point.

Glancing up, Malwine found her facsimile of Nightsky was back. Redoing her old setup would be easy. Probably. Then again, that had been her core’s design for the Early Esse. She was at the Mortal Esse now—and the thought to shamelessly rip the candle off resurfaced. Veit’s comment had her convinced it was possible.

Hm.

Mana Sources

Root

Acclimation

Control

Legacy ∞

50

25

Foresight IV

0

0

Vestige IX

10

5

Implicit X

0

0

Locked

-

-

Locked

-

-

Locked

-

-

Other Affinities: Ore III

{Foresight} continued to refuse to justify its existence, while {Implicit} was new to her still. They were almost nothing but vines adorning her {Legacy}-{Vestige} chair, at the moment. It made for an admittedly appealing sight, but they just felt… thin.

And {Vestige} had grown firmer, despite continuing to clearly ignore the concept of object permanence at all the spots beyond where she could see. It was still as dark as the sky above. {Implicit} was similarly dark—a part of Malwine dreaded the day she got to forge Classes with either or both of those, given how they were bound to border on unreadable within her panels.

She imagined a single thread from each Root moving closer to her, and thought of braiding them, not unlike Adelheid had done to her hair the other day. Malwine wasn’t even sure she remembered how to make braids—it was good for her that things within her core cared not for her normal capabilities.

“Then what?” she asked nothing in particular.

Could she circulate? It had, admittedly, been quite the while since she’d cultivated properly. {Vestige} had scared her off it, for the most part. The combination of all four Roots had also not seemed like something she could cycle at the time, yet she’d reached the Mortal Esse.

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It could be done now—that certainty came out of nowhere, but Malwine was past questioning such things.

“Don’t break anything,” she warned the braid before sending it off. She could have sworn she felt it slip away from the center of her chest, spinning around the area of her stomach and abdomen for a moment before coursing through one leg, then the next.

It slid past her core to do the same through her arms, dancing by her shoulders before giving her neck and head a sweeping pass. It returned to her core, slowly descending until it touched the water.

Malwine could only gape—that had been smooth. She checked on her real self, only to confirm it hadn’t even made her accrue a single point of [Toll]. Was there a true difference between one rank and the next, beyond the extra levels now presumably available to her?

Veit had simply spoken of what he believed would be required for her to reach the Mortal Esse—he hadn’t actually explained more about the rank itself. Not for the first time, Malwine found herself wishing The Snow would start already. She’d spend the entire day pestering Veit if she could.

Curious, she repeated the motion, sending the braid of mana through her body. Identifying her channels was difficult—they’d become something not unlike extra, intangible veins intermingled with the real ones. They were strange. Malwine found she thought of them as golden, yet if she tried to focus on them, all glimpses she caught of them appeared as the white afterimages of something that wasn’t physically there.

She sighed. Redesigning her core was hardly a priority, but nothing was stopping her from just doing it. What would it be, this time? She wished she could somehow co-opt {Ore} into building a pier for her, nevermind that the Affinity was unplanted.

The best she could do was force {Legacy} to expand. It shifted, and columns rose from the unseen depths of her core. With the waters within, only half of it was really hers to design anyway. Planks formed from the same Affinity, and soon, a pier-like thing that was most definitely not a pier sat at the center. It was round, a circular opening surrounded by wood that went on for an indeterminate distance. Water still surrounded the makeshift structure, but her Roots were no longer floating in the boundless ocean.

Using the other three Roots proved a harder endeavor. With a frown, Malwine restored her chair. {Legacy} was so much larger than the others that it made everything seem effortless. With {Vestige}, she raised torches to later illuminate the space within her core. They looked as if they had been carved out of the sky itself.

It didn’t help that she successfully pulled the stray hints of {Ore} closer, much like she had once done with {Foresight} before planting it. The tiniest pieces of metal had become embedded in wood and torch alike, though the latter remained unlit.

Weaving {Implicit} and {Foresight} into anything was a challenge. They were oddly compatible, at the very least—if they hadn’t been, this would likely have been much more of a pain. Given the lack of an alternative, Malwine used them as decor, dark braided vines adorning the strange circular pier.

It was odd and impractical, but nothing here had to be realistic. She could do whatever she wanted. Her imagined braids wove between the planks, the result surprisingly aesthetic.

There was only one real issue left to contend with—how was she actually going to light the torches? She withdrew from her core, momentarily.

Her double appeared back on the basement, where only bare embers and ashes remained by now—a truly necessary use of her power, if anyone ever asked—and so Malwine knelt, dipping a hand into the flames while forcing her double to touch it in truth.

She dismissed the double and snapped back to her core at such speeds that she felt her surroundings shake as her visualized self materialize within, her palm slamming against the closest torch. She set it alight, then—the flame was but a shadow compared to the candle’s iridescence, but it worked, somehow. It shimmered with smoky wisps of {Vestige} rising from the torch.

Malwine felt herself panting, despite the true effort having been brief. She raised the torch and approached the others, lighting them one by one before returning this one to where it had initially been, close to her chair.

Ah. Malwine smiled, a bit too pleased with herself. I love this kind of utterly meaningless success.

It carried a sense of accomplishment—nevermind that she wasn’t wrong about how little this did. So far, whatever she did within her core didn’t seem to be as impactful as simply circulating her mana was.

Unfortunately, that debuff had been right. Where Malwine had breezed through the Early Esse, she didn’t seem to progress in the slightest through the next few hours. Her core remained unfinished, though she wasn’t sure what else she wanted to do with it. She’d leave it, for now.

“I’m so going to yell at Veit the first chance I get.”

Returning to her real self, within her room, Malwine found new notifications greeted her. She could hardly believe her eyes as she opened them.

Your [Multitasking] Skill has improved! 9 → 10 Your [Earthless Glory] Skill has improved! 5 → 6 Your [Meditation] Skill has improved! 29 → 30

Your [Meditation] Skill has gained another 10 levels. An Aspect was developed.

Fucking finally!

[Meditation] It's about pondering, not finding new and exciting ways to fall asleep. Dwell upon a something to slowly lower accrued [Toll] and increase the current value of [Integrity], as well as maybe learn something. Effectiveness of restoration varies depending on your ability to remain focused on the subject of your meditation. Choosing scalable values as subject carries a small chance of increasing them. Trait: None Aspect: [Depicture]. All abilities that rely on visualization have their effectiveness slightly improved. This effect is greater for Skills within the category.

It had been years since she’d last gotten a Skill to actually develop an Aspect. Literal years. The thought alone was enough to get Malwine to consider it further—when had [The Plurilingual Psyche] developed [Understanding]? It must have been late into 5800, or early into 5801.

Why can’t notifications just have timestamps…? Dammit.

Malwine shook her head. There wasn’t much to do but guess, as far as that timeframe went. Her new Aspect, however? That was cause for celebration. Off the top of her head, she could already see not only [Earthless Glory] and [Meditation] itself benefiting from it, but perhaps [Remote Reading] as well. Determining whether any others counted would be a matter of trial and error—she didn’t believe she ‘relied on visualization’ for others, but who knew?—yet developing the Aspect was satisfying in and of itself.

She hadn’t exactly been doing badly, but having something tangible to point to helped her mood. Greatly so.

As she processed her other level-ups—who’d have thought leaving that panel up and rushing to touch a flame would be enough to improve even more Skills?—Malwine grew aware of a tiny issue.

Where was Adelheid? Malwine’s panel continued hovering where she had left it, something she found surprised even herself, but her little sister had disappeared. All she could do was sigh. Adelheid being Adelheid…

----------------------------------------

This was new.

She'd stared at the panel for so long that she could still see it. A lighter, fainter version. It was one of the many, many reasons why Adelheid had never liked light much, but the system wasn't made of light. The panels just showed up and disappeared. It reminded her of how she hid and unhid, even!

So why had it left this annoying copy of itself to follow her around?!

It made her have to sit in a corner for a little while, closing her eyes. She almost couldn't stay still for that long, but in the end, Adelheid did it.

The copy got lighter and lighter until it was gone.

Adelheid sighed, happier now that the dumb thing wasn't bothering her anymore. She'd wanted to go visit people right away but she'd needed to do this first.

Now, she was free to go get that Skill. Sister Malwine had told her all about how she'd gotten some Skills from just doing things or even thinking about them, so why couldn't Adelheid do the same?

She really did like the Skill on that panel, too.

And she knew where the adults usually hung out. Since they were so scared of The Snow—Adelheid still didn't get why—they were getting clumsier and clumsier in their meetings. She'd overheard that they didn't think they could keep searching for her sister's copy if The Snow arrived.

It seemed a little dumb to her. Adelheid showed up everywhere, all the time, and they never went around looking for her afterwards.

Sister Malwine went and made one fake man with her Skill, and suddenly everyone was looking!

Maybe Adelheid should pretend to be some stranger too, sometime.

Maybe then her mom and everyone else would finally want to see her.

…But the Skill her sister showed her would probably be easier to get than anything like that.

“I think it usually happened when I was already doing things?” her sister had told her—it was sad that Sister Malwine didn't have a good memory like her. Adelheid would have remembered better. “I got my languages Skill while trying to understand everything around me, though I don't recall what—exactly—I'd been doing at the time.”

Still, that was good enough for Adelheid.

She appeared then, letting her hidden form move to the middle of the room just as she'd practiced. Her sister asked a lot of questions about how this all worked—questions Adelheid honestly couldn't answer—and it had all made her want to try and do newer, better things.

As her first idea, she'd thought of saying ‘Hi!’ or even giving them a plainer ‘Hello!’, but maybe getting their attention by speaking would go against what the Skill was meant to do.

Three different people—maybe more—spoke at once. Adelheid almost wished she had Malwine’s census to see if she could guess who they were, but she didn’t.

She chose to just look at them, and once she thought they had all seen her, she gave them a wave. That was something she’d seen her sister do, and people seemed to like it.

The Skill didn’t show up, so Adelheid went back into hiding and moved to another room where she’d seen people talking. None were as nice as the first room she’d tried—it was harder to pick a spot where she could just show up and get all of them to notice her.

Her sister’s census, however, gave her hope that this could work. There were apparently a lot of people living around the family home, which made sense to Adelheid now that she thought more about it, but it made this all easier for her. Lots of people meant she got lots of tries at this, after all.

On the sixth attempt, Adelheid noticed something strange. It wasn’t the notification she hoped for—she still didn’t have the Skill she wanted so much—but something was getting… clearer. Where she usually hid and unhid without thinking too much about it, intentionally trying to make her unhiding obvious felt like stretching more than intended after a yawn.

It didn’t tire her, but it was taking her more effort.

By the eleventh attempt, it happened.

You have unlocked [Benighted Star]

Would you like to slot [Benighted Star] into your category?

[Benighted Star] If you enter a room while hidden, show yourself and activate this Skill to draw attention to yourself for as many seconds as this Skill’s current level. The strength of the effect depends on how your Presence compares to that of the people in the room. Trait: None Aspect: None

Adelheid giggled. Her sister’s reaction would probably be so much fun! She’d have to wait a little to tell her, since these new lessons were taking so much time, but she was already excited.

Another notification distracted Adelheid before she could return to their room, so she stayed hidden to look at it.

Would you like to differentiate your Presence attribute into Copresence? This decision is irreversible.

Copresence: Nothing exists in a vacuum. Your influence on the world around you can coexist with that of everything else. Enhances the effectiveness of all abilities influenced by Presence.

Adelheid wasn’t sure what a vacuum was. She wanted to ask her sister what she thought, but her sister was still doing that meditation thing she liked so much… She huffed—having gotten used to doing it more and more—and accepted it. Aside from that word, this sounded nice.

While her sister went to talk to the forest man, Adelheid would have a nice while to play with it.