Avidia slowly rests her hands on the blackened gem, and immediately the system asks if she wants to infuse the gem of darkness into her ability to amplify it, but as she goes to press yes, something clouds her mind.
She didn't want to further her descent into being devoid of emotions, it was something that truly frightened her. It wasn't her father discovering about her, or gods, not even beasts she knew she had to fight in the tournaments.
It is the fear of losing herself, a promise to herself and one that she is willing to keep no matter what.
"What's wrong?" Ricka asks coming closer since they all had stepped back and didn't know what might happened. "Is nothing happening?" He looks around confused but Avidia refuses to answer, ashamed of herself for being afraid.
Cipher looks at her for a second then draws closer as well. "I mean, I could try one?" He acknowledges. "I mean it should work, right? Since I only have the ability of lightning unlocked."
"Yeah, I suppose so." Ricka's head dips slightly in contemplation and Cipher winks at Avidia making her finally relaxed and able to press no, but adds the gem to her inventory. "Ok let me see what I can find! Elga?"
"Sure." She walks off with him leaving Cipher and Avidia behind.
"I see he's taking this seriously," Avidia says trying to cut through the silence.
"He's doing that to mask his true feelings I still haven't deciphered yet," Cipher says, looking at him.
"What do you mean?" She shifts her gaze to him.
"Nothing." He mutters.
'I must be imagining things, but for the briefest moments, I catch a glimpse of something different in him—something real. It feels like the true version of him, hidden beneath the mask he wears now. We all wear masks, don't we? As humans, we hide our true intentions, our real selves, which makes trusting others hard to come by, even the trusted ones betray you in the end, a world rigged with prey who have fallen victim to others who don't seem to have a heart. No one can be trusted in this world, not even those who claim to be from a world gone.'
His eyes wander to Elga. 'And one day, that mask will shatter, revealing the demons lurking beneath the facade you let onto us, I don't trust you, not even the slightest.'
For a moment her eyes meet his before he pulls away to see Ricka waving out to him. "Come! We found one!"
"Coming," Cipher says, but not before spotting the leader with the gaping hole in his chest a few feet away from him, their clothes are still intact and looked presentable except for the hole in the middle.
'All I need is pants.' he mutters to himself looking down at the white cloth still gripping at his waist for dare life under his cloak. "Give me a moment!" He shouts out loud before moving towards it.
Quickly removing it, he puts on the black pants and joins them as they look down at the gem, clinging onto the helt of the sword with its blade stuck in the ground.
Without any time to waste, he places his palms over it.
[Do you want to infuse this lightning gems power into your lightning? Yes/No]
He presses yes, and at once the gem glows and fades away into a glowing blue dust that becomes one with the wind.
"Do you feel different?" Avidia asks generally concerned.
"No." He says shrugging it off. "I guess it only boosts your magic and not your physical stats or anything. So your theory is right, Ricka." Cipher pats him on the back and he beams as Cipher walks away, looking for more Lightning gems to boost him to at least the next lightning rank.
'Since my Ability ranking is based on the ranking of angels the next level after should be Principalities and that is the last of the Third Sphere (closest to humanity).'
While battling mutated lizards on the fields, Elga explained to Cipher that the Seraphic System was the second trial-and-error creation by Vitalis. Disappointed with its performance, Vitalis ultimately abandoned it.
However, Cipher's connection to the Seraphic System revealed a crucial insight: every new system he acquires is an evolved, perfected version of those past experiments, now refined by the sealed god and the original tenth god of Morgetti.
"Cipher!" Gluttony chimes through his thoughts again and He notices it's becoming more often now.
"What is it now?"
"Follow it." She says cryptically as a golden light blinds him for a bit then transforms into a small ball of light.
It was like Deja Vu of the first time he followed a light, but he followed her word and followed it as it weaved through the old swords, coming up behind a rock and pressed inside in the floor, through the rib gages of what seemed to be the remains of a human, is a rusted dagger.