Chapter 394 (2/2)

What…?

Randidly’s Skills were there, pulled together by the belt they had created. Resting just above the belt, in what was going to be the anchor and bridge, there was Randidly’s image, a small, spatially warping ball of light. Above that Lucretia had been layering the Aether weave, now 57 layers thick, and extremely dense with energy. Small little bolts of discharge flashed off between layers.

But that wasn’t what had caught their attention. The weave was starting to…. twist, for a lack of a better word. The portion of the weave directly above the anchor point was beginning to slowly spin, sucked in towards the light that was supposed to be the anchor. And the more they watched, the faster it started to happen, as the first, the bottom most layer, was gobbled up, the second began to twist.

No! Neveah howled, and she reached with her own senses relating to Aether, right into Randidly and grabbed onto the layers of Aether, as they slowly twisted, forcing them to remain strong. Randidly shuddered, feeling abruptly ill at the sudden invasion, even though it was from someone who shared a Soul Bond with. Hell, if they hadn’t shared a Soul Bond, he suspected that the side effects of what she was doing would have been much more dire…

Then he shook his head, refocusing. “I think it’s too heavy. The thickness-”

“I know. Fuck! Your image isn’t strong enough.” Lucretia hissed, rubbing her temples. “If Neveah can hold it there, I think I can fix this mess.”

Randidly’s temper flared. “It’s only lasted that long because of how strong the image is. One basic image can’t hold up all this Aether. If this was going to be a Skill, the ratio-”

Randidly’s mind ground to a halt as the strange dizziness and blindness returned, everything drowned out beneath a layer of buzzing. Instead, he could only wince. He could sense Lucretia speaking to him, but she seemed unaware of what was going on, and the fact that he couldn’t answer.

When he didn’t answer, she seemed to take that as agreement, and motioned to Neveah, who adjusted her grip, and tried, without success, to pull the portion of the layer that had been sucked into the image back out to form his Class. Instead, it remained stubbornly absorbed, and it seemed that the suction was growing.

As Neveah changed her grip, the buzzing only got worse. Randidly’s stomach also started growling in response, and suddenly Randidly wondered if that this wasn’t his stomach growling, but something else.

And there was a tickling in the back of his mind, one that had been here the whole time, one that had been buried under dissatisfaction and frustration. Randidly didn’t like this, this method of cobbling together something and forcing it together to be organic. But the other two understood Aether much more than him-

Strangely, of all memories, Randidly’s father’s voice floated to the surface of his mind. ‘People with hammers like to see nails.’

Randidly paused. Was that really… all it was…? Because these two were so focused on their ability with Aether, they were attempting to solve a problem through Aether that they didn’t need to…?

But that was wrong, this was an Aether based System, and-

Randidly’s eyes snapped open. Of course.

Because the System itself wasn’t the enemy, the person running it was, that fed the Aether. But if his Aether was a separate type of car to what everyone else had, that didn’t mean Randidly had to stop using the roads….

If this was a Skill… They needed more images. But if they had images, they needed more Aether too, so everything remained balanced. And hadn’t this whole idea with Neveah pointing out that Classes were just larger versions of Skills…?

Something settled in Randidly’s chest. The buzzing slowly died away. With a gesture, Randidly moved Neveah and Lucretia back away from his core. Without their influence, instantly layer after layer of the Class they had been attempting to build began to be sucked into the image at the base. The anchor had become something of a black hole, and greedily ripped into all the ambient Aether around it.

“Randidly, what-!” Lucretia began, but he just gave her a look.

Then Randidly smiled, reaching again, and this time, he didn’t hold back, but scooped up over half of the Aether that had sat inside of him, soaking into his soul and bones, whispering to him. Then he pressed, and it began to spin.

His eyes burning emerald, Randidly said. “I’ve had an idea.”