It didn't take a lot of effort to add the basic patterns of a mory to the weave of the black mantle. That was what he had been doing over and over again to supply the Brilliant Emporium with inventory, after all. By now, weaving them was almost muscle mory.
They did not put a lot of pressure on a weave, either. Even Dormant mories of the First Tier could bear the weight... the nexus of the mantle had been fashioned out of a Transcendent soul shard, so Sunny did not even have to integrate a second node into the ethereal tapestry.
It was a bit tricky to make the two different schools of weaving flow into each other, but since Sunny's thod was the more intricate one and not the other way around, solving that problem proved to be trivial.
Just like that, he gained a new mory at the cost of a few shadow strings.
Enjoying the view of the shimring Great River, Sunny smiled tiredly. Studying hard was an exhausting process, but he welcod the fatigue. It was a sign that he had made progress. He didn't regret turning the mantle into a mory, either - even if it wasn't useful, he would have been reluctant to part with it.
All things that weren't stored within his soul would be lost at the end of the Nightmare. If he had been cognizant of that fact earlier, he would have had a better nto of Noctis than a luxurious chair.
...Although he had nothing really to complain about, considering that the Shadow Chair was actually one of his most valued mories. Sunny summoned the runes. Ananke's Mantle was there, at the end of the list.
Even though he more or less already knew what the runes would say, he still read them.
mory: Ananke's Mantle.
mory Rank: Transcendent.
mory Tier: I.
mory Type: Garnt.
Sunny smiled faintly. Garnts were a rare type of mory, since the better ones were classified as armor by the Spell. Those that did not make the cut were generally less useful, but their benefit was that they could be worn in conjunction with an armor-type mory. Like the Dark Wing, which he had been using ever since the Forgotten Shore.
He continued reading, feeling a pinching pain in his heart:
mory Description: [This mantle once belonged to Ananke of Weave, Priestess of the Nightmare Spell. She t the Children of Weaver in a nightmare and guided them across the perilous currents of ti. Her wisdom was radiant, and her kindness was a blessing. May she rest in peace.]
The Spell had not written that description. Sunny had written it himself. He had tried to co up with the right words, but they all rang hollow. In the end, he had simply written a few awkward sentences, not knowing what else to do.
Unsatisfied, Sunny looked away from the description.
'No one else is going to see this description, anyway. Only Nephis and .'
Eventually, he grimaced and concentrated on the enchantnts. The runes read:
mory Enchantnts: [Enduring], [Conceiling], [Tasteless].
[Enduring] made the mantle durable, resistant against the elents, and capable of repairing itself. [Conceiling] masked the presence of its wearer - the mystical kind of presence powerful Awakened possessed.
[Tasteless], though... was a rather strange enchantnt, if it could even be called that. From what Sunny could see, it didn't do anything. It was just there, containing nothing except for its na and description.
The description read:
[Tasteless] Enchantnt Description: "Why did it have to be black?".
'Huh...'
Which was rather perplexing. The people wearing the mantle would not have been able to read the description unless they were sorcerers themselves, which most of the priests of the Nightmare Spell had not been. So, the mysterious creator of the enchanted garnt seed to have left that odd ssage for no one in particular.
Sunny shook his head.
'That person must have been a bit of a lunatic... also, what are they talking about? Everything looks better in black!'
Each rune of the description demanded essence strings to be wasted, after all. And weaving them took both effort and ti. So, only a crazy person would go around weaving unnecessary runes...
Sunny coughed, rembering his own track record. Back in the Antarctic Center, he had once sent Nephis a ssage through a mory called "I Am Stuck in an Endless Tunnel Full of True Darkness. How the Hell Do I Get Out? Ask Cassie".
Was there really a need to add "the hell" to the actual question? No.
But did it feel good to add it?Hell yes.
Looking down in embarrassnt, he put on the tasteful black mantle and rose. Leaving the Shadow Chair by the ketch, Sunny rubbed his face and went to find Nephis.
He had gained a lot of insights from studying the weave left behind by an unknown sorcerer. It felt like his understanding of sorcery was on the precipice of taking a qualitative leap in the coming days... he would have to do a lot more work, of course, as well as digest all his gains.
However, Sunny already had a few ideas on how to proceed.
Right now, he lacks the soul shards to do anything significant. There were a few that Ananke had used while fishing, to lure the Nightmare Creatures, but those were of lesser Ranks. He was aning to use them to create mories for Nightmare to consu.
That said...
He still had the Supre soul shard that they had scavenged from the Black Turtle. Which ant that he could potentially create a Supre mory.
Of course, it was not that simple. Scaling an enchantnt was not as simple as replacing the nexus of a weave. Most of them could not be scaled at all, and those that could required the weave itself to be vastly modified and improved.
After all, strings made out of Awakened soul essence could not endure the flow of Transcendent energies. The patterns themselves had to be adjusted, as well, to account for the increased burden. Not to ntion that enchantnts were usually limited by their own nature... infusing them with more potent essence would simply be a waste.
It was a proper ss.
However...
When Sunny asked himself how to empower the mbers of the cohort and make them capable of facing the perils of the Tomb of Ariel better, he couldn't help but think back to the Forgotten Shore, where they had also been forced to fight abominations one or even two Ranks above them.
How had they been able to survive that crucible?
There were a lot of reasons why they had, but one of the most significant ones... was a single mory.
A mory that could empower all other mories, and which had been the primary goal of their lethal expedition across the Crimson Labyrinth, to the outskirts of the Hollow Mountains.
The Dawn Shard.
So... what if Sunny did not create a Supre mory, but instead elevated the Dawn Shard to the Supre Rank?
Wouldn't that be the most efficient way of making the cohort stronger?
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Erdiul's Note: Holidays...yeah, so I won't be available for the coming days. That ans no chapters. Will release them when I'm available again. rry Christmas.
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