Athelei had been busy reading up on the many advanced topics made available to him when a whir of machinery tore his focus apart.
'Could it be..?'
At first, the angel thought that the Mechanical Prototype lying at the centre of the dungeon room had mysteriously come back to life. The whirring sound that had rattled him out of his zone had come from around the same location.
But with Inspect, he knew that the Mechanical Prototype was a hundred-percent a cold lump of metal. No energy flowed through it, nor were there any turning cogwheels and steam pillars.
It was not the prototype making those sounds.
'There should be something underneath this then, right?' Athelei thought to himself as he floated around the mass of machinery and extended a few foggy tendrils into the stone floor.
Deep resonations were blooming out of something that the angel had just discovered. It rang out in a deep frequency that humans could not sense. Similar to how Earth's humans could not completely hear a whale's song, as human eardrums simply could not perceive any sound below 100 Hz.
But these resonations caused turmoil in Athelei's fog-body. He could feel it being transmitted through his incorporeal being, bumping into corporeal particles of air and dust, allowing him to sense it in greater detail.
Inspect was swiftly executed as Athelei zeroed in on a few intriguing particles embedded within a gemstone crystal.
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Mystical Alchemy Ingredient
[ "Drop of Demon's Blood" ]
- A drop of an Oxhorian Spawn's blood. Has a variety of characteristics depending on how it is handled.
[]-[]-[]-[]-[]-[]
'Alchemy...' Athelei's nonexistent eyes flashed as he recalled a certain individual he had seen in the Arthime mansion. 'Like that priest Gehir, right? Potioneering should be a part of Alchemy, yes?'
As the angel had these thoughts in mind, he suddenly noticed a nifty detail.
Within the resonations, Athelei sensed rhythm to it. Sometimes there was a long resonation, a short one, or consecutive short ones. There were also pauses and gaps of varying durations.
'A pattern? A possibility...' The angel committed such a pattern to memory as he guessed at the implications.
The resonations lasted for only a few minutes, and Athelei's attention was placed wholly on recording its faculties.
When it was over, calm returned to the small dungeon room. But a weird feeling had already settled within Athelei as he felt inspiration strike him.
He returned to his physical body and 'woke up.'
'Perhaps... perhaps...' Athelei pursed his lips as he walked towards the weird machinery and placed his hand atop its cold tubes and gears.
Wisps of grey fog were dancing around him, acting as supplementary sensory organs.
The weird feeling in Athelei's body peaked at this moment, as a thin strand of energy flowed into him.
'The mark...' Athelei nodded as he waited.
Soon, resonations began pulsating out of the crystal he had found. The Droplet of Demon's Blood was acting up once more.
"Haha,"
Athelei chuckled when he confirmed his flash of inspiration. He then diverted his gaze towards the ceiling above him. In his mind, a three-dimensional map of the subterranean kingdoms and the labyrinth appeared in his head.
A documentation of every nook and cranny he had previously scrutinized appeared in his mind.
"The Oxhorian Spawn are coming, my brothers and sisters of humanity."
Athelei's eyes flashed as his gaze seemed to pierce through all the rock that lay before him. Unconsciously, his wisps of grey fog were meshing themselves with the travelling waves of vibration.
Four wings spread out on his back, and Athelei felt his second pair of wings suddenly react to something.
'Hm?' The angel's eyes dilated as emotions of surprise had filled him at that moment.
The mark that he had voluntarily accepted into himself flowed into his wings. There was then a low hum and the sound of sizzling [Mana]. Something was happening and it was awfully reminiscent of a chemical reaction.
Instinctively, Athelei felt something partly unlock.
Certain imaginary doorways creaked open, allowing a sliver of light to shine onto him. A portion of the answers he sought about his own existence came into his view.
"A connection... feathers of space..." Athelei couldn't help but mutter, as his young wings of only a metre in wingspan curled around him.
There was slight hesitation visible in his eyes as the angel grasped at his own wings for the first time in his life. He was surprised by how tender his wings were. There was warmth and there was softness.
His wings felt like a blanket blessed by the heavens as they caressed his skin.
It was well and truly an angel's wings.
But then, Athelei's expression instantly crumpled as he plucked out a feather.
'That is an unpleasant feeling...' He thought to himself as he held out the feather, 'But it's necessary...'
The feather suddenly seemed to solidify even further as it was isolated from his being. It took on characteristics that were less ethereal and more... dull. Athelei felt his own wings somehow decrease in size. His efforts in devouring residual consciousnesses and absorbing Stains of Existence receded.
But Athelei reached out once more, and with another flinch, he plucked yet another feather off of his second pair of wings.
The angel then took a moment to compose himself from the painful jolts. He closed his eyes and breathed in the musky air of the dungeon.
The low resonations were still pulsating outwards in some kind of pattern he had yet to figure out. The wisps of his grey fog could still sense each wave as it travelled. He could also feel a few foreign waves making their way to him as well—or more accurately, to the crystal inside the Mechanical Prototype.
Athelei then waited, recalling the pattern of the first resonation. He waited for a significantly livelier portion of the performance.
And when it eventually came, he let go of one of his grey-coloured feathers.
Magically, that feather was carried by the rippling waves, phasing through the rocks and stones.
It was a magical sight.
When that feather was ethereal and barely solid-like with its foggy consistency, it felt so real to him. He could play with the fine barbs, enjoy how it was incredibly soft to the touch, and even feel the resistance brought about by its hollow shaft.
But now that it looked like an actual object, it simply went through stone, as if its appearance was but a lie.
When it looked ghostly, it was quite solid. When it looked solid, it was ghostly.
Nonetheless, Athelei watched as the feather disappeared from his human sight. He could feel an inexplicable connection with the feather as it travelled further and further. There was a signal being sent to him, and it was oh-so-similar to when Irene would think of him or mention him in her prayers.
'Could Irene's summonings back then have influenced my second pair of wings?'
Athelei narrowed his eyes as he made more guesses.
'Spatial in nature...Spatial...'
While the angel wallowed in his thoughts, the feather kept travelling with the few waves it had hitched a ride on. Athelei waited, and eventually, he felt the feather stop moving.
With another deep breath, he placed his second feather between the pages of a book he had been reading. He left it there like a bookmark.
In the next moment, he flapped his second pair of wings.
But this time, no gust of wing occurred. It was quiet.
It wasn't like his first pair of wings, capable of blasting out a gale with a whoosh. Instead, after flapping his wings, Athelei felt the space around him contort and twist.
He felt the connection he had with his feathers. There were tunnels in space that would lead him straight to them.
Thus, Athelei stepped forward.
And in the next moment,
He was gone.