Shadow Slave

The weave of a Shard Memory was subtly different from an ordinary one. They possessed some unique qualities, after all, like the ability to remain in existence after the owner's death, or the hidden purpose of manifesting the Oath Keys after all seven had been gathered in one place.

Luckily, Sunny possessed two Shard Memories of his own - the Midnight and Moonlight Shards - so he already knew how to find and isolate these sections of the tapestry, which was supposed to make the task of deciphering the rest of it easier.

...In theory.

In practice, the spellweave of a Shard Memory was even more labyrinthine than that of a normal Memory. Sunny had managed to gain a sufficient level of understanding of the Midnight Shard - enough so to apply a part of its enchantment to the Siege Souvenir - but the Moonlight Shard still remained beyond his grasp.

Which was a shame, because the ghostly stiletto possessed one of the most useful enchantments Sunny had ever seen - it was able to appear instantly, without wasting any time manifesting itself from the sparks of essence. If Sunny could master that single enchantment, all Memories he created would gain a lethal edge.

The more powerful a Memory was, the longer it took to manifest. So, as the Awakened reached higher Ranks of power, they had to be more and more strategic about when to summon their Memories.

Considering that he was unable to master the weave of the Moonlight Shard to this day, the Dawn Shard could very well prove to be a similarly tough nut to crack.

As Sunny stared at the vast tapestry of ethereal strings hidden within the band of bright metal, the corner of his eye twitched.

'Yeah...'

This... was not going to be easy.

'But I can do it.'

He was certain of it. Recreating the whole weave was out of the question, but modifying it... armed with the insights he had gained and would gain from Ananke's Mantle, he felt confident in his chances.

It was just going to take a lot of effort, and a lot of time.

'How do I transplant a new nexus without collapsing the whole weave? How do I ensure that superior essence actually produces a superior result? How do I prevent the less resilient sections of the weave from being torn apart by the increased burden on them?'

All these questions required answers... there were many more problems to solve, as well. Sunny had never tried something quite as ambitious as turning a powerful Ascended Memory into a tremendously more powerful Supreme Memory.

One thing was certain - it would require an inhuman level of finesse and precision. It would also require a lot of additional essence strings.

a lot of ingenuity,

not

beat patching up sails or drowning in a

the bending surface of the tall aplustre, he moved the oar a little and peered into the shimmering

from the water, Sunny felt like his head was on

Sunny was holding the Dawn Shard in one hand. His other hand was resting

the air and weaved strings from his flowing shadow essence. Those were manifested from

an additional pair of shadow arms - it was not too hard for him, considering his experiences in the Second Nightmare. The most difficult part was actually learning how to manifest sufficiently intricate

it was not something a human could achieve. Two hands

the same time

raise sails, or rip Nightmare Creatures to shreds. Those were crude actions that did not require a lot of

two shadow arms

six arms? That's simply unreasonable...

deck, rubbing her face sleepily. She glanced at Sunny

sighed, and continued on her way to examine

delicious food

He smiled.

breakfast, I

replace him at the steering oar, Sunny dismissed the Dawn Shard and

sacred tree, enjoying the warm sunlight and the refreshing breeze.

you going to

leaned back, satisfied, then shook his

couple more days... there's a

to continue studying Ananke's Mantle, alter the spellweave of Dawn Shard,

She frowned a little.

will slow you down. Your mind needs time to

He smiled.

Dusk we are on our way to visit. It helps me recover from exhaustion, both physical and mental, faster. I'll be