Chapter 338 - 338: Echo Conscious
[Oh, typically no one would tell you. It's a secret far above your level after all. But…. I don't particularly mind.]
The silhouette waved his hand.
An ethereal shard appeared in his palm, catching no light but somehow visible anyway, its edges soft and indistinct like everything else about the old ghost.
[In the first epoch, I believe. There used to be an artifact called the Echo Conscious. It had gained sentience long before humans began to reign over the world and went around gathering information between the heavens and the earth. It did not fight. It traded, and where it couldn't trade it stole. Eventually it became known as the most knowledgeable consciousness in Finor.]
The voice paused.
A brief stillness settled between them.
[Unfortunately that alone wasn't enough for it. It sought to break the world's barrier to enter the ???? and ?????? , ???? ?????.... Eventually it was weakened and several old monsters went hunting for it, taking it apart bit by bit, controlling it and turning it into systems.]
Leon stared.
The blanks in what the old man had just said sat there plainly. Gaps where words should have been, information simply absent from the transmission like pages torn from a book before it was handed over.
The old ghost didn't seem to notice.
He continued as if everything had come through cleanly.
Leon said nothing about it and filed it away.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,
[Host, would you like to trade?]
The system spoke without his permission.
Leon's frown came immediately.
He hadn't given it an opening. Hadn't lowered any of the internal pressure he kept on it. And yet it had pushed through anyway and addressed him directly in the middle of a conversation with someone else entirely.
Everything he had done to manage this thing was apparently less effective than he'd assumed.
"What do you want?" He asked out loud, making sure the old man heard him.
[It's trying to convince you to swallow my shard so it becomes more powerful. Right?]
The old man laughed.
Strange and short, the sound of someone who found something predictable rather than funny.
[Typical.]
"I don't know what to do with it." Leon said, not bothering to dress the complaint up. "It seems hard to control honestly."
The old man smiled.
[Naturally it's hard to control at your level. But it's also because whoever gave it to you never really wanted you to control it. I'm different however.]
He raised one hand and a wave of information pushed directly into Leon's head.
Leon went still for a moment, processing it.
[That was made by an old friend of mine using its conscious circuits. Naturally the shard will still try to break through it. But it will fail every time, as long as you remain diligent. You will control it.]
,,,,,,,,,,,,,
In all honesty Leon had thought about throwing the system away more than once.
Several times the thought had come and gone. The problem was always the same. He didn't know enough about what it was to do it cleanly, and doing something like that carelessly wasn't his style.
But now, hearing its background, the desire to be rid of it sharpened considerably.
[Don't be in a rush to throw it away.]
The old man said it like he'd read the expression on Leon's face, or perhaps he simply knew the reaction well enough to anticipate it.
[Remember that even us old monsters kept it despite its scheming. This thing is more useful than you think. It carries more knowledge in its consciousness than even I have. Try the seal.]
Leon closed his eyes.
He turned his attention inward and found the seal in the information he'd just received, examining it carefully before doing anything with it.
It didn't require outside assistance to form.
No foreign energy needed to be introduced. No opening created that the old monster in front of him could theoretically use as an entry point.
That was enough for Leon.
He formed the seal in his mind's eye, shaped it cleanly, and sent it toward the system like a brand pressed into place.
The system took the shape of the shard it actually was.
Leon felt the difference immediately.
The thing that had been sitting loosely inside him, slipping through whatever pressure he applied, was now fixed. Defined. He could feel its edges. And if he wanted, he was fairly certain he could pull it out entirely with enough direct force.
"It's useful." He said simply, opening his eyes.
[Naturally.]
The old man smiled and rose from his seated position.
He didn't say anything further about the system.
That brief exchange had told him enough about what kind of person Leon was. Calm when surprised. Skeptical without being paranoid. Willing to act once he'd confirmed something wasn't a trap.
Ultimately confident in his own judgment.
The old ghost said none of this out loud.
He simply turned and began moving.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,
At the edge of the tunnel Leon spotted Levi.
Still cocooned. Seated atop what appeared to be a large trey, the sticky substance sealed tight around it, completely unaware of anything happening around it.
[Don't worry about him.]
The old man glanced at the cocoon without slowing down.
[I used to have a pet too. The trey belonged to it once. It can help him develop. In fact I'm not entirely sure what species your companion is…. Definitely royal blood of some kind.]
He said it the way someone mentions the weather. Noted it, moved past it.
He brought Leon to a set of three statues arranged at the far end of the space, then settled himself cross legged on an ancient rug positioned before them, its pattern worn down to almost nothing by time.
[This is where my inheritance lies.]
He looked up at Leon.
[But first I would like you to tell me why you want it.]
He had already made up his mind.
Looking at Leon throughout this entire inheritance had settled the question before it was formally asked. The boy was not a member of the hydra clan, that was true. But the old monster had seen enough people pass through the world to know when something was in front of him worth leaving things to.
Still.
He wanted to hear it.
Power? Survival? Enemies pressing from some direction Leon hadn't mentioned?
Something else?
"Immortality."
Leon said it without hesitation.
Not like an answer to a question.
Like something that simply was.
Cold and steady, the word sitting in the air between them with the weight of something he had already decided on long before this cave, long before this inheritance, long before any of this.
The old man looked at him for a moment.
Then smiled.