Die. Respawn. Repeat.

There's one thing that's been on my mind ever since we encountered it with the Seedmother—one thing I've been ruminating on and trying to work out. The Interface is lying to me about the skill categories. Why? What's the point?

And more importantly, what are those categories, really?

It's not some arbitrary way to designate and separate skills. Considering the similarities in the way the skills in each category are constructed, there has to be something more fundamental to it than that. Everything I've encountered since then agrees, from Virin's imbuement stones to the variety of other skills I've seen used against me.

This feels important. I can almost feel the weight of the lie in my soul, like a physical weight dragging me down and interfering with the formation of the fourth layer.

Maybe that's what it is. A way to weaken Trialgoers and Integrators alike. We're reliant on the Interface to grow, and if the fourth layer requires me to know the world—to define myself in relation to it—then any lie within it becomes an exploitable weakness. It ensures not only that we're weaker than we could be, but creates an instability in our souls that could be used to fracture it.

Just speculation, perhaps, but... It feels right.

It doesn't matter, I suppose. Kauku has told me that I have all the information I need to uncover the truth behind this; I'm still not exactly sure what that means, but I'm pretty sure I can find out.

All I need to do is look.

The evidence is all around me, contained within my soul. If I look very, very closely, I can see the beginnings of the fourth layer trying to form. It's thin, wispy, and insubstantial—unable to properly form without the first three layers fully solidified—but it's enough to see the four pillars I identified in Gheraa's echo. Four barely-noticeable origin points around which the fourth layer is trying to form. They're exactly where I'd guessed they would be.