When Irwyn awoke, the golem still floated above, perhaps even in the exact same position. He slowly sat up, feeling surprisingly refreshed. Elizabeth stirred just as he moved, woken by even the slightest noise, likely due to the tnesion from before their slumber.

"How long were we asleep?" he asked.

|| Irrelevant ||

Which was wholly unhelpful. There was no Sun stretching overhead, so it would be difficult to track days within the Trial, especially given everything that had happened so far. The first chamber had been too intense to timekeep, and they had both fallen unconscious afterward.

"What is that?" Elizabeth pointed, making Irwyn also look.

At some point, the chamber had shrunk to just a massive room rather than a geological fixture, and not far from them stood the only distinguishing feature: A three colored pillar the size of a building, part Void, part Light, but mainly Flame in the middle. Even at first glance, Irwyn understood that it held immense complexity within.

|| Your bricks and tools ||

"So, you want us to Carve more Concepts, right?" Irwyn looked towards their steward for confirmation.

|| It is what you will need to survive ||

"And this will help?"

"Or just assist with recovery and growth?" Elizabeth interjected. "I think more information will let us make better plans, leading to smoother masonry."

The bisected golem was quiet for a while before answering. || Yes. Your Souls will 'calm' faster under the pillar's aegis and grow more easily. There is no direct effect on the carving itself. ||

"About to be expected," Elizabeth nodded, then turned to Irwyn. "Nothing to it. I still need time before my next. You on the other hand…"

"I have delayed it long enough," Irwyn admitted, glancing towards the pillar.

He knew what had to be done. Star. Forged from its component Concepts that he knew all too well. Light - Luminous, radiance, incandescence, glare, shape, control, magic, strengthen, and empower. Flame - Burn, incinerate, melt, conflagrate, shape, control, magic, strengthen, and empower.

Irwyn had already contemplated the combination and knew exactly how it would fit into place, only being delayed by his Soul settling. Plenty of time had passed since though, not to mention the half-vision that had caused their entry. He had his plans… and a problem standing in between them.

"I have a potentially lethal issue," Irwyn admitted after some hesitation.

|| Speak ||

"Due to some exceptional bindings, I need alternative ways of carving Concepts. That involves some degree of injury. Those same bindings prevent me from healing myself as Light magic usually could. I worry about bleeding out or succumbing to other mutiliation."

Their judge looked at Irwyn with some confusion, then sudden focus. It then reached an arm forward. Irwyn could not feel anything, yet the power visually distorted reality as it accumulated on the being's palm. It took Irwyn an embarrassingly long moment to realize what was happening, but before he could give warning of that really not being a good idea, he was distracted by something manifesting.

Not chains, nor any other such cruel fetters. Instead, he was suddenly wholly enveloped by ribbons. A thick cushion of them - almost like a blanket that wouldn't let him so much as stir to movement - of little strands of light. Except they were woven of more than light or even Light. For a fraction of a fraction of a moment, something tugged at them. The ribbons objected.

The golem's body was disintegrated in an instant, dispersing into a mixed nebulae of Star and Temzda, which proceeded to react with violent explosions. For a brief moment, the entire Trial shook, those indestructible walls of fire spontaneously manifesting cracks the size of hills. An oppressive pressure descended onto Irwyn, making him feel like he was suffocating before it even had the chance to force any air out of his lungs.

Then in the next instant, all of that ceased. The golem reformed, seemingly unharmed, before Irwyn could even fully register their prior obliteration. The shaking stopped and any scars quickly mended. Not that the damage had been significant. Beyond the giant walls of Flame, he had noticed at least 5 more layers of identical barriers before the damage reached no further.

|| Potent. || the golem spoke without emotion, then paused again. Instead of just a few seconds, it took it several minutes to respond further. || Very well, as you Carve, physical ailments will not hurdle you. ||

That was as good of a guarantee as he could possibly hope for. He glanced Elizabeth's way and noted she had taken a seat right beneath the pillar while the golem had been pondering, and was meditating. She would still be some ways off from her Soul fully settling before she could take the same steps as Irwyn was about to. He put all that out of his mind, and focused.

What was a Star? Or more importantly, what did Irwyn wish for his to be? There were two competing visions Irwyn had witnessed in his dreams. One had shown him an act of creation, something new, born anew into a world, full of possibility. The other was desolation, nations evaporated in between split seconds. A frenzied and grief-stricken borderline madness… and a weapon.

Irwyn could still not create. His were not the hands of a maker. Even the little he had achieved with the multiplying needles had been for an instrument of destruction. The simplest way would be for the Star to burn, much like his Flame had, but Irwyn aimed higher. He called upon the memory of a vision long passed. Of Names and Edicts clashing. When a nation had fallen to an Edict, decreed by his once-self. Reduced to less than ash.

It had not been just incineration. The point had not been that something burned. The newborn Star had been pure annihilation that merely took on the visage of licking tongues and blinding glare. But there was a difference. A hard line that eluded Irwyn even as he realized it must have been there somewhere. But he still thought he managed to capture at least an echo of it as he began to Carve.

This merging felt different than the first two. He once again began altering into his arm where the two Concepts had been intentionally placed close to one another, starting to twist them. He would first join the similar intentions making up the whole as those would be the easiest connections to make, and move from there. That had been the plan, at least.

He was disturbed to find a rather more… internal stirring. From beneath the shell around his Soul. Irwyn was still not the best at sensing his within, but the reverberations were staggeringly intense. Like the aftershock of a thousand detonations happening inside his Soul with every microadjustment he attempted. Irwyn wondered if Bhaak's traded blessing was at that moment shielding him from even more debilitating agony that the Carving itself could cause, but put that aside to refocus.

He wasn't sure whether he was causing damage to himself, but stopping was not exactly an option either. He had already stirred both the residual marks, beginning their changes. If he ceased right then it could lead to even more unpredictable sequela. Nor were the broad strokes too unexpected. He needed the change on the flesh to reflect on the Soul - in a way, it was a good sign that anything at all was already happening. Either way, he couldn't afford to waste time.

His first strokes were shape, control, magic, strengthen, and empower. Identical intentions manifesting in very similar ways in each of the two Concepts. It was almost trivially easy to merge them into singular strands, then trim them down. There was too much power in each for the singular line of a Concept, after all. Still, the result was noticeably stronger than the originals, which was half the point of the merger. Refine what had already been into something tempered and stronger. Next came the not-so-easy half.

He needed to shift the next four intentions of each of his existing Concepts into something new as well. Like reducing brick back to clay only to fire them anew. That process was orders of magnitudes harder than carving them from scratch, yet at the same time made much simpler by the easily merged five. He had barely just started, but was already halfway done, making focusing on the rest simpler.

First were incandescence and melt. They were closest to each other in both shape and relation, so a good place to start. They were the slow and insidious part of the Concepts. A gradual and overwhelming accumulation, that would eventually break apart anything. Driven by his newest inspiration, Irwyn pushed that further. He was seeking more than. He wanted complete dissolution. And it came into being.

Burn and glare were next, each the core of the offensive powers of his duo. One to devour anything, the other to pierce just as much. Irwyn decided to seek both in one. There was no need to make such a distinction between the two. The means were not the important part, rather it was the resultant annihilation.

The last two pairs were a lot worse matches for each other. Irwyn chose radiance and conflagrate, then had to twist them much more significantly to even fit together, then further to reach the intention he actually wanted. The one he settled on was overwhelm, thought the result was not actually any better than if he had carved it directly. That was just a necessary loss. Perhaps if he had meticulously planned his Concepts for years with advice of sages he could avoid any such mishaps, but the results he was getting were already quite sufficient.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

And lastly, luminous and incinerate were the least fitting. Both for his newest inspiration and to each other. The partial dissolution had to go much further than even in the last merger and the results were subpar. Irwyn had anticipated that though, which was why he had left the relatively less important destroy for it.

Destroy, overwhelm, annihilation, dissolution, shape, control, magic, strengthen, empower.

Star

Everything snapped to place, sending a jolt through Irwyn's whole being. Almost instantly, he felt the Concept's almost eager hunger for destruction. That was what he had made it for, after all. It was not shields and barriers that destroyed a region. Not in the trial, not in his visions. He would compensate with something more defensive later, but what he knew he needed first was unstoppable force. He felt he had achieved that.

A strand of Starfire flickered alive in his palm, the air sizzling around it. It was still scorching hot, of course. No matter how hard Irwyn had tried to draw a distinction between burning and dissolving through the empyrean flames, that was probably not something that could be achieved in Conception. But it was a step and a direction. One he felt would lead to the power he found himself craving.

When he actually infused the Concept into his little spell, it felt… different. When he had done so with Light and Flame the connection had been deeper than ever before, but what was in his palm in that moment went far further beyond that. Even if the Concept was built to be stronger through the merger, the difference was too large. It should have been thirty to forty percent more potent than a Concept directly made according to scholarly estimates. Instead, what he held felt maybe as much as twice the power that each of the original two had.

He looked up, confused. Elizabeth was still meditating by the pillar and he didn't want the answers so urgently as to disturb her. He doubted she had any insight he wouldn't in either case. The first few guesses were obvious. Something to do with his yet unreachable Name, the sheer difference in affinity, or maybe the inspiration he had taken from the visions.

"I don't suppose you would offer me an explanation?" Irwyn glanced towards the golem. It did not even deem to answer, which was basically what he had expected.

He stood up and moved closer to the pillar. Already, he could feel its almost soothing presence. The effect he was perceiving had not been apparent before, but that had changed now that his Soul would need settling again. It was basically a balm to that recovery, though, surprisingly enough, the effect didn't get any stronger as he approached. Either the difference was minute or there indeed might not be any with Finity absent.

He still went to examine the Light side of it from more up close. And found basically nothing new. It was still incomprehensibly complex to his magical senses, yet there was nothing different about it visually, not even with his Sight spell, that thankfully seemed to work just fine substituting Light for Starfire. He might need to compare the two elements once he had rescribed the former Concept, but that was for later.

One thing he did note was that he could not sense Elizabeth at all when the pillar stood between them. Some kind of isolation effect that could actually come in rather useful. He was naturally prone to being disrupted by any large surge of Void magic, and the same went the other way around for Light. A good thing, even though it would make however long they had to spend here… well, lonelier.

Shaking his head, Irwyn settled down to also meditate. He had to figure out if he could also speed up his recovery and get on with the next Carving, and if not, then better figure out the limits of his new merger. Then a thought struck him. If this place was meant to facilitate growth… "May I make a request?"

|| You may, understanding my patience is squandered at your peril. || the golem had either already been above him or manifested there just as he spoke.

"Among my things, there is a pendant which contains some insights into Starfire. I would like to use it as a source of… inspiration. Hopefully insight."

Again, their trialmaster paused, considering for a strangely long while. || Very well. It will be removed again once you intend to move on. ||

Then the pendant manifested in Irwyn's hand. The very same made by Hen Daunt what felt like forever ago… even though it had really not been all that long. Once officially receiving it from the Old Crow, Irwyn had struggled to find any use for the accessory. It would empower any Starfire passing through it, but at a cost of a long delay. Irwyn's issue was not insufficient reserves or cumulative power, it had always been the speed at which he could expend them, rendering that benefit nil.

But more recently, he had gotten his mind on a different track. It had started with the marks of Names discussed within the Republic. Irwyn was realizing that things that had little use in the past were suddenly proving themselves worthwhile. That he had only thought of it inside the trial was a testament either to how busy or how carefree he had been.

That was in the past thought. What mattered was that with the pendant in hand, Irwyn could possibly gain something tangible from examining it. His mind and perceptions had expanded manyfold and with a Starfire based Concept Carved it was the perfect time to make another attempt.

Once again, Irwyn poured his magic into the opening of the pendant's channels, starting so without said Concept. The difference was immediately noticeable, his sharper sense able to feel how perfectly smooth they were. Irwyn had had the same impression the first time, but not to such a degree, and he had especially not understood the meaning when originally testing the item.

As was the nature of magical pathways, they had a tendency to interact with whatever coursed through them. That wasn't an issue if one was facilitating their own magic, yet it was a small problem for enchanted equipment. There would always be some kind of interference, even though obviously minimized as much as possible. Except with Han Daut's work, apparently, as the man's pathways had been crafted with such precision Irwyn could not perceive anything of the sort even at Conception.

Then Irwyn's senses followed his power further, and he once again lost himself in mapping the impossible angles that he knew hid within. The inside was still vaster by far, allowing Irwyn to slowly get the full picture of something greater. After all his improvements, he actually noticed the exact moment when his instincts took over and made the final leap from a vaguely imposing shape to a source of overwhelming power.

WEEPING STAR

He felt it much stronger than in the past. The mark belonged to no Concept, perhaps even no Domain. Irwyn was beginning to wonder how Alice's father had not only gotten his hands on such a secret, but how the man had maintained such low profile despite the ludicrous skill that kind of creation must have taken.

It was also closer to him. Now that it had taken root in his mind again, it felt almost like a distant relative. Or perhaps a child on a leaving boat. Waving from a distance that could not be gapped, yet still unmistakably familiar as it reached and reached… towards the corner of Irwyn's mind where he intently ignored a Name.

What was the relationship between Truths and Names? Irwyn did not truly know. It had unsurprisingly been left out of any magical texts he had been given access to. Even with the greater access to secrets afforded by Elizabeth's favor, that kind of thing was likely considered too far away from Conception to be even brought up. If not also too secretive to be shared even with the young heiress. Irwyn sighed. While there obviously was some kind of connections between attaining Truths and claiming a Name, he did not have enough information to even begin guessing the exact mechanics of that.

So instead of dwelling on something useless, he firmly grasp all his mana within the pendant, then granted to it Star. Despite the sheer destructive nature of his Concept, the channels did not so much as tremble under the pressure. Irwyn had expected nothing less and was happy to be right about that. More changes did not let him wait long.

The previously simple and straightforward channels split. In a thousand places, they thinned or expanded before divering and doubling, sometimes even tripling in number. Some of those pathways would loop around each other before rejoining, others led to dead ends that gave way for more of the intricate drawing. The overall geometrically impossible shape had not changed, just… grown much more detailed.

He had previously been drawing a perfect circle, only to find out the shape was actually made of thousand intertwined strings, intricately woven into each other so that there would be no apparent difference until one looked at the microscopic level. And the changes added such depth and mystique to the overall shape it made Irwyn grasp.

Perhaps… he doubted he would have even been able to realize what he had been looking at from the simpler shape tangible during Imbuement. It suddenly struck him just how ridiculous that actually was. Like understanding what sunlight was by looking at a child's drawing. 'Instinctively' filling in those final bits was in hindsight completely ludicrous. Not even Elizabeth could have possibly done that. Just him.

There was still power in the imperfect shape. Otherwise, the multiplier to any Starfire coursing through it would not be there. And looking at the modifications caused by his Concept, Irwyn was finding that the effects would go further beyond that - though it would need testing. And more capacity for thought, because the new expanded version was strongly taxing Irwyn's mind. He still had enough leeway for a rising suspicion though.

What if Han Daut had not transcribed a Truth? Merely a shape 90% of the way to being one. Something close, but immeasurably easier, less secretive, and likewise not nearly as powerful. It was still a feat, true, just… not on the same level. The pendant had made Irwyn and likely even Elizabeth think that Alice's father had secretly possessed a Truth despite evading House Blackburg's intelligence network, yet he was coming up with a more likely hypothesis.

Even with great care, hiding a Truth just seemed implausible from what Irwyn had heard Elizabeth explain about them. It would be much more reasonable to think he could downplay his real skill among other Domain mages. It just so happened that the pendant in Irwyn's hands allowed the man's craftsmanship to transcend the wildest imagination. Because even if Irwyn did not know it by his own memory, ancient insticts had seemingly jumped out to finish the partial mark.

He would bring it up later for a second opinion. Still that made him focus on the mark more. If his new conjecture was right, the pendant did not actually posses the full shape, just the vague outline, and still presented a noticeable advantage. The full thing could then could become a much bigger edge than Irwyn had realized. In fact, it already had before.

In the past, Irwyn had tried to draw the Truth's shape into his magic. During the attack on Abonisle, specifically, to some effect. Suddenly thinking back, he wasn't sure why he had stopped. It was such a useful tool, no matter how relatively small that effect might have been at the time. Sure he had been limited in his ability to cast magic between then and his showtrial, but it was strange for it to have just… slipped his mind.

Or perhaps it was the most natural thing in the world. His focus was already waning, unable to fully contain the sheer extent of the shapes increased intricacy. There was such a thing as too much knowledge. Secrets not meant for the mortal mind. Irwyn just happened to be in a strange juxtaposition of the two.

His Soul and will were both mortal and not at the same time. Only able to process things at about the same rate as peers of similar power would, yet clearly also incredibly resistant to various ravages of too lofty knowledge. Given his other quirks, it was not a stretch that he could somehow temporarily withstand knowledge as heavy and mountains, which then still slipped from the mortal portion, just in a less violent way than it otherwise would have.

The way to test that would be checking in every few days to see if he still remembered the symbol… maybe tell Elizabeth to ask him in a month of not keeping it at the top of his mind. Though that might be a test of later. Because right then, Irwyn really wanted to experiment with it.

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.