Chapter 1343 (2/2)
Humming to himself, Randidly sat down and began to meditate. Golden roots stretched downward from his position and wriggled their way into the ground, connecting to the vital leylines of the Earth. In comparison to a planet, Randidly’s small expenditure of mental energy was nothing. Quickly the living energies that animated this world smoothed away the headache and began to restore any damage to Ignition Essence he had sustained in the clash with Illym.
Congratulations! Your Skill the Golden Roots of Yggdrasil (L) has grown to Level 242!
When Randidly next released a breath, he had largely recovered from his earlier exertion; it looked like he had left the Dreamcatcher of the Long Night in time to avoid a completely debilitating headache like he incurred the prior time. Although it might also be true that he had gained some Levels in his Fatepiece since that time, decreasing the drawback of it somewhat.
Randidly eyelids flicked open and his emerald eyes scanned the surroundings. The Level 41 Undead Badgers were just over the slope of the next hill, watching Randidly suspiciously. They didn’t dare come any closer while he remained there. Their bristling fur was plastered to their bodies by the rain. He couldn’t help but be amused by their careful behavior. Such was the world with the System, everyone knew to fear the strong.
He closed his eyes, but he didn’t yet leave his root sphere. The sound of the rain pattering through the leaves and dripping down branches of the nearby trees was enough to really calm Randidly down. And then he began to consider some of the advice that Illym had given.
...a deep darkness… that feels like a dead weight…
...a supernatural sense of briding, huh…? I suppose that’s one way to describe inspiration… a way to jump from one place to another… the trigger and vehicle for a paradigm shift… or a bridge… I’m trying to use the original bridge once more… Fire would be that bridge...
Some lose their original meanings in new contexts… this is growth…
If you need inspiration, visiting old images that were cast aside...
Everything began to fall away. In Randidly’s mind, two small tongues of flame quivered. One was orange, one was emerald. The pattering of the rain echoed in the vast space around those two tiny pieces of flame. To Randidly’s eyes, it seemed like these two flames were being completely oppressed by the darkness he inherited from Illym. Honestly, Illym saw her own image truly; it was quite a lot like an egg of depression…
Which supposedly gives birth to a phoenix, based on the way that the other Skills of Ignition Essence shifted,but its hard to know the best way to incorporate that identity of the phoenix into my image… especially when I don’t want to get rid of Ignition Essence as the source of inspiration for my growth…
Is clinging to inspiration the wrong move? No, I definitely feel like inspiration is the core of what I want to do… My images will develop in this manner, no matter the difficulty. I shouldn’t compromise for an easier Path... Then is the mistake staying fixated on fire as the source of the inspiration…? I could clearly feel when facing Illym how my own image of fire fell short compared to hers… and the way that Ignition Essence is transforming, its less a raging fire and more the source of the inferno…
But if not fire… what other object fits a phoenix…? An ice phoenix? Lightning? Poison…? Poison at least would be something that I have experience with…
Randidly knocked the knuckles of his metallic left hand against the solid roots of the structure on which he sat. His imagination tried to trace out what a poison phoenix would look like. Dark grey body, feathers that were soaked in filth and corruption, liquids and acids dripping off the body… a rounded beak and eyes with the square pupils of a goat… Rather than a proud eagle, this phoenix looked more like a vulture.
Shaking his head, Randidly allowed that thought to slowly dissipate. Because even if he got away from fire, he would need to find out how poison could be a source of inspiration for him. And poison didn’t seem to have anymore synergy with Innate Violence than fire did. The inspiration wouldn’t have an easy time fitting into that version of the phoenix either. Which made Randidly consider whether the image of the phoenix was a red herring.
After all, it was a suggestion of the System after reading through his Skills and images. And this was the reason that Randidly generally avoided doing related Paths until he settled on the details of his image; he didn’t want the System with too much influence on up his thought processes. This was the perfect example; although it was just a few names for his Skills, he remained stuck on this issue.
But to be fair, Randidly was quite taken with the phoenix as a part of Ignition Essence. The one realization that Illym had caused in him was that he really had three sources of images for Ignition Essence. Inspiration, a Phoenix, and those dark emotions. And every combination of two of them fit together. But when Randidly attempted to mix all three…
There are two more thoughts I can try, Randidly let his eyes crack open. The rain continued to pelt downwards, each drop diving with pure belief toward the ground where it would explode and dissipate. Each raindrop was a tiny existence doomed to cease as soon as it formed in the clouds. Such was life. The first is to try and think of things other than fire that inspired people, use that for the new form of Ignition Essence. And the other way is to think about my old Skills and images and think about new ways to use them…
Randidly breathed in and then he breathed out. At least for now, he wanted to avoid antagonizing that strange dread he felt in regards to the Dungeon issue. For now, he gave himself two hours to address Ignition Essence before he couldn’t delay any longer.
Congratulations! Your Skill Absolute Timing (Ru) has grown to Level 122!
And so he continued to consider.