Die. Respawn. Repeat.

There are secrets within secrets hiding within this whole system of power. The Interface, Firmament, this whole idea of Threads, Concepts, and Talents. The boundaries between them are less distinct than the Interface would like me to believe.

It's telling that Ahkelios is surprised by what we've learned, despite possessing the Concept of the Sword—he stares at the Interface window for a bit, puzzled. "I don't think I ever got any notice about Threads of Sharpness," he mutters. "Or Threads in general. Although I guess that explains two of those Inspirations."

"You probably just managed to grasp the full Concept without needing to pick up all its Threads," I say. "It does mention that's possible. Depending on the practitioner."

"So I'm a genius, is what you're saying."

I snort. "Did you need the Interface to tell you that?"

"I needed you to tell me that," Ahkelios says, a hint of smug satisfaction entering his voice.

I just shake my head in response, hiding my grin. "Don't let it get to your head."

Back to the point at hand. The Thread of Insight has shown up several times by now; the first few times, the Interface only said that I "touched a Thread". After that, it told me something about "gaining access to the Thread of Insight".

Despite what the Interface has told me about Threads, though, it doesn't exactly feel like the Thread of Insight gives me any new information. It's not feeding ideas into my brain the way Inspect does. Instead, it feels more like it's just speeding up a natural process—like it's helping me make the right connections to come to a conclusion I would have anyway.

Perhaps more importantly, it gives me confirmation that my natural instincts don't. Without it, any conclusion I come to is guesswork at best, but the Thread of Insight seems to tap into some fundamental truth; when it's active, I know for a fact that the conclusion I'm coming to is the right one.

So.

If I want to know more about the fourth phase shift, that Thread is probably going to be my best bet. Kauku's been leaving me hints, hasn't he? He's mentioned at least two things that might be related to the phase shift: first that I have all the information I need to uncover whatever the Interface is hiding regarding its skill categories, and second that the Soul Space skill is somehow crucial to the next shift.

As far as I can tell, he doesn't tell me things for no reason. That he's done it twice now means what he's told me is probably crucial. I just have to figure out how.

"You okay there, Ethan?" Ahkelios asks. I wave it off.

"Just thinking," I say. "Give me a minute. I'm going to try something."

The main problem right now is that I don't know how to intentionally activate the Thread of Insight. The Interface tells me that I've gained access to it, but activating it isn't as simple as activating a skill—there's no construct in my soul that allows me to manipulate it, nothing I can feed Firmament into to enhance.

Even with my new understanding of Threads and Concepts, the new sense I gained from the fight with the Abstraction, and the Abstract Crown the Interface granted me, I have no idea where to begin.

Nothing to it but to try, though. The Thread has always responded well to my intuition, so I figure I might as well keep doing exactly that.

And right now, my intuition is telling me to meditate. To reduce external stimulation as much as I can and examine my core—try to see if I can identify this fourth-layer bottleneck.

"Keep an eye on me, will you?" I say. "This might take me a while."

Ahkelios and Guard blink, glancing at one another, but nod. "Don't take too long," he says. "We don't know when Naru's going to be done."

"I won't."

I start by taking deep, slow breaths. I close my eyes and let the world around me fade away, going as far as to pull Firmament away from my eyes so I'm not even left with the pink nothingness of my eyelids. I let myself get used to that for a moment—not darkness, but nothingness. Ꞧ

Then I focus on the noise around me. The sound of the wind, the crows, the gentle humming of Guard's systems. Drawing Firmament away from my ears leaves me without even the ringing I hear in perfect silence.

I should do this more often. It's surprisingly peaceful.

Next the smell of wet earth. Mari's cooking, rich and savory. The scent of the nearby forest, thankfully masked by the village's activities. It's not exactly pleasant. I acknowledge it, though, then let it fade until it's nothing more than the passage of air.

Then the feeling of the log beneath me, scratching against my thighs. The weight and texture of my clothes against my skin. My Firmament withdraws until all that remains is the slowly-fading pulse of blood as it circulates through my body, until even that is nothing but a dull hum.

Taste doesn't change much, though I pull my senses back from it anyway, just to complete the set.

And last but not least... There's the Firmament sense that's accompanied me since almost the moment I started this journey. This one I can't just turn off—but I can turn it inward, focus the entirety of it on my core.

With everything else shut down, I can sense the shape of my soul with startling clarity. I let myself soak it in for a long moment, feeling out the edges of what I've become and the choices I've made. It's fascinating. Everything I've done is inscribed in here in some small way, like a tapestry of decisions that map out the texture of my soul.

I don't regret them. I don't think I can afford to. Whatever mistakes I may have made, they've shaped who I am today; all I can do is take that with me with every new step I take. That realization settles into me, and with it, a newfound clarity.

I can feel the effect of the phase shifts.

It's like a slight shift in perspective, and suddenly I can see the way each shift I've been through creates a new, foundational layer that builds up on everything I was before. The three I've been through work in concert to create what I can only name the bedrock of my soul. The foundation on which everything else is built.

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It's the reason my Firmament has grown so much stronger, I realize. It's solid in a way it wasn't before. Three stages of synchronization with three layers of power has given my Firmament a presence and strength that's altogether missing from most of what I encounter in the wild.

And yet...

I pause, looking a bit closer at my Firmament and frowning mentally.

And yet it's not quite there. It's about as close as it can get, certainly—right on the precipice of becoming something real and tangible—but it feels almost like there's something missing from it, something crucial it needs to be fully realized.

This is it. The bottleneck that supposedly prevents a Trialgoer from achieving their fourth shift. Without completely solidifying the first three layers, the fourth can't be built, and whatever's missing here isn't something that can be overcome just by shoving more Firmament into it.

I feel the Interface responding to this realization. It comes through like a ripple in my soul, originating from the part of me that's linked to it. I'm too deep in my soul to read whatever notification it just gave me, but I can guess what it says.

[Thread of Insight activated!]

Or something along those lines.

I go back to studying the not-quite-solid bedrock sitting in my soul. It's hard to pinpoint what it's missing. For the most part, it just feels like there's some final ingredient that hasn't been added, something that's needed to transform this from "almost real" to just "real".

That alone is a familiar idea, though. It's almost like...

Almost like an Abstraction.

I consider that thought for a moment, turning it over in my head. That isn't a Talent I have, and it's not a Talent I know how to even approach getting. More to the point, I don't think Talents are required to progress with Firmament—if they were, all the Integrators would be stuck at the third layer, just like I am. From what Gheraa and Kauku both have said, I don't think the Integrators have these Talents.

But I can take cues from the idea of Abstraction. It's an ability that takes something conceptual and turns it into something real. Can I do the same?

Not directly.

I can't create something out of nothing. That's what the Talent does—it makes something real through nothing more than force of will and presumably some intrinsic quality that allows someone to adopt a Talent.

But I don't need to.

That's why Kauku forced me to pick Soul Space. Because it's a skill that takes something real and turns it into something not-quite-real, something that can be stored within the soul. If I study the mechanism, if I understand how Soul Space does that—better yet, if Soul Space itself can be used to fill in those gaps and solidify my Firmament?

I'll have the foundation I need to break past the bottleneck and complete the fourth shift.

That's almost enough to make me pull out of the trance. I have my answer—all I need to do is experiment with Soul Space. See if I can use it to complete the solidification of my soul.

And yet... I hesitate. Something makes me stop just before I pull my awareness back. Something I've put to the back of my mind for now.

Gheraa.

More specifically, the imprint of him tucked away inside my soul. It feels almost like it's reaching out and calling to me—except that's impossible, surely? It isn't alive. Not the way he was or even the way his construct was. It's a blueprint I was barely able to capture before it faded. An echo of who he was.

I cast my mind toward it anyway, just in case, trying to identify whatever it is that's getting my attention.

It feels like it's resonating. Not reacting, exactly—a reaction would imply that it's still alive in some way—but even just as an imprint, it seems to somehow be responding to the state of my soul. I look it over carefully, trying to understand the cause. It's almost like there's something different about the way my Firmament flows through it, but it's so subtle that it takes a long moment of deliberate examination to see it.

Gheraa was at the sixth layer, wasn't he? Or something close to it, at least. Echoes of that remain even in this so-called echo, causing my Firmament to move just a fraction slower, creating an outline of his core.

The first three layers are solid. Rigid. They're the foundation of it all, and even devoid of Firmament I can sense their depth. The upper layers are so complex as to be nearly invisible to me.

But the fourth? I can see it with shocking clarity.

It's the fourth layer that's resonating—creating tiny, almost unnoticeable ripples as my Firmament moves through it. It's bouncing off something barely there, barely visible.

Four of them, to be precise. It's like there are four pillars in addition to the foundation, used to hold the fourth layer together. The only problem is that they look... unstable, for lack of a better word. The bedrock is strong, the framework solid even in this imprint, but the pillars?

They're shaky. Like they formed accidentally more than anything, a natural result of building out the fourth layer.

Something about that strikes me as odd. Phase shifts have always been about solidity, about deepening one's connection to their Firmament. Why would the fourth layer include shakily-defined pillars?

The more I think about it, the more I realize there has to be something more to the fourth layer. Something that maybe even Gheraa didn't know about.

It's strange in the first place that it would take just one skill to get past the bottleneck. As much as that explains why it's so difficult to get past the third layer—random chance is hardly something I'd bank on to get a fundamentally required skill for progress—every phase shift before this has required me to solidify something about my soul. To make a decision that defines me.

Even if this next phase shift doesn't, there must be something else I need to do. I'm suddenly certain that if I achieved the fourth shift as I am now, I'd end up with something incomplete. Maybe not dangerously incomplete, but incomplete nevertheless. It'd be a flaw in my foundations that I might never be able to recover from.

Shit. Just keeping a hold of Gheraa's imprint like this might have just saved me. It's a strange thought. Gheraa is still helping me, even indirectly, even without being alive. What do I say to that? Thanks?

It doesn't feel sufficient, considering all he's done to give me a shot at this. To give Earth a shot at breaking a cycle I didn't even know existed.

"You better be ready for me to bring you back." That's what I settle on. No more waiting. I find myself meaning it, too. Somewhere along the way I've decided that he's someone I want fighting by my side when we end this. With everything he's done, he deserves to see this through.

The only question is: how do I use what he's given me now?

Because I get the feeling it's important. Very, very important. Something the Integrators won't see coming, because it's something they don't know themselves.

Four pillars and a foundation. Five in total. That number feels important. It's not the first time I've run into it.

Five Ritual stages.

Five skill categories in the Interface.

There's something about that. The Thread of Insight thrums, making connections, bringing up memories.

It won't be quite the same as performing the fourth layer shift... but I think there's something I can do now. Something that will pave the way. The first three shifts required me to make decisions about who I am and who I want to be, but I don't think that's what this next one needs.

Not a decision. A revelation. I've defined myself: now I need to define my relationship with the world around me, and to do that, I need to know the world around me.

Easy enough. I'll begin by tearing apart a lie.

Ahkelios stared at the Interface popups in front of Ethan, growing increasingly concerned.

[WARNING: Strength overflow detected!]

[WARNING: Durability overflow detected!]

[WARNING: Reflex overflow detected!]

[WARNING: Speed overflow detected!]

What was Ethan doing in there?