Shadow Slave

Sunny was more of a copycat than an actual sorcerer. Most of his repertoire consisted of recreating the weaves of various enchantments he had gleaned from his own Memories, not creating those of his own.

Of course, even that was already a stunning achievement. Armed with nothing but his intelligence and a bit of intuition granted to him by Blood Weave - as well as the ability to see weaves, in the first place - he taught himself the most fundamental principles of sorcery. The wondrous sorcery of the Demon of Fate, which very few beings had ever been able to wield.

At this point, Sunny had barely taken the first step away from blindly copying the spellweaves, tentatively trying to disassemble and modify them to serve his whims. The Siege Souvenir, a unique Memory he had created to slay the Fallen Titan Goliath, was the result of these attempts.

But Sunny was still a mere novice, all things considered. He was leagues away from true sorcerers... like the mysterious being who had created the Estuary Key, for example. That weave was simply beyond his imagination. He couldn't even imagine how long it would take him to reach the same transcendent level of mastery. A few hundred years, perhaps? A millennium?

So, Sunny had no illusions about his achievements. They were rather astonishing when compared to other modern Awakened, but that was only because most of those Awakened knew absolutely nothing about sorcery. In the grand scheme of things, his skill was negligible.

...Or so he thought before taking a look at the weave of Ananke's mantle.

'Huh? Wait... what is going on...'

The tapestry of ethereal strings shone in the darkness, laid bare in front of his altered eyes. It was much simpler than the infinitely complex weaves created by the Spell, but still... wasn't he comprehending it a little bit too fast? It was almost like an open book.

'That part of the pattern is responsible for enhancing durability, that one has something to do with fire... ah, it's making the mantle inflammable. That one makes it waterproof. Then what do these strings do? Hmm. Looks familiar. Right! If I scale the size and complexity of this part by... a lot... it would be similar to a fragment of [Living Stone]. The basic structure is the same. Which is also the basic structure of the universal restorative trait of all Memories. So it's self-repair, then...'

eyes wide

"...What the hell?"

reading weaves? Before, he could only feel a slight inkling of understanding about the nature of certain enchantments, but now, he was somehow able to see the intent behind various sections of the ethereal tapestry almost clearly. Despite it being a completely unfamiliar way of

just looked

blinked a couple

'Don't tell me...'

his mind. He gave the black mantle a dubious look, then let out a

'I'll be damned.'

ingenious and near perfect, and as a result, they were all unimaginably complex and intricate. It was to such a degree

about two years now, and for every grain of knowledge he gained, there were a hundred he failed to decipher and

it was nowhere near the complexity of the tapestries the Spell created. And so... it seemed that after being tempered by the latter, Sunny had grown skilled enough to more or less discern the general flow of the

without ever even laying eyes on an alphabet book. The weave of the mantle, meanwhile, was not primitive enough to be called an alphabet, but it was something that a middle schooler

Sunny had learned enough to be considered

his palm and remained motionless for a

by how weak normal Awakened seemed. Greater obstacles forge greater strength. As long as you can

and of learning sorcery by studying the Spell at work. As such, the work

then calmed down and looked

use them as a replacement for a text book and propel my weaving forward. Hopefully,