Sunny returned from the Tower especially happy. Because Aiko was still recovering from Effie's spawn, the Brilliant Emporium had to deal with some chaos. The trading business required Aiko to make a list of supplies to buy for the shops established in various citadels. While she could delegate some tasks, she was still giving orders from home, not willing to give up on soul shards she could earn to saturate her core.
He had to take care of some shipments himself, handling Memories required a substitute Awakened, which in this case turned out to be Luster. There was also that problematic crocodile's hide, a daunting task of turning hundreds square meters of skin, scutes and scales into a supreme material. Speaking of Luster…
"So how is it, boss?"
"It's simple. It's waiting. Mostly waiting for a customer."
"And what am I to?"
"It depends on a customer. It might be that the client will wish to find something being a Memory, be it a simple torch, a saddle, sometimes a nice outfit. I remember a time when someone was looking for a flint. Those suffer from terrible lacks of imagination, and need help to be guided towards the utility we can provide. The first thing is to see what can catch his interest, and sometimes give him a little push."
The mutual dependence between him, and Aiko has caused many their skills to bloom, but it also resulted in Sunny being used that Aiko knows how to handle his problems. Which is good. He really wouldn't want to hope to contact every artisan by himself, write down every wish that the client would want to be fulfilled. But the most important thing about Aiko is her social skills. She could talk clients for him.
"Then there are those who will come with something they want turned into a Memory or those who will ask if we can make their stuff stronger. Those… ah, screw that! Think about it like it's a conquest. The success is when the client falls in love with the product."
"Got it, boss. I will get them begging for more!"
"Wa…"
But Luster wasn't listening anymore. He started walking around, taking some photos. He turned on his computer, and started using some graphic programs. If before he had thought his creations to be pretty, now they looked… handsome.
'This can't be… It's impossible, right?'
Eventually he decided to not look at the artist in the process. Also something in his guts warned him against that.
He walked to his workshop, and started working on another Memory. This particular got his interest for it was an ascended armor of the Fourth Tier. What got his interest were not their enchantments, but the look itself. The armor was very light, and sturdy. It was made mostly of bones, which indicated that at least one enchantment was supposed to work with bones.
The armor was intimidating. Most parts of it were some kind of carved or not carved bone. Helmet mated of parts of the skull, pads finished with scutes, some parts seemed to have so many joints that Sunny could consider it came from some kind of tail. Many bones were sculpted into matching plates, while outline one the 'breastplate was made by the bones of a rib cage.
To be able to work with it Sunny declared that he can upgrade some of its power to transcendent rank. Was it true? He can't lie anyway. But as always there was a catch. The trick will work only with the enchantments he can isolate. If he tried to add a transcendent soul shard to an ascendant enchantment not only would it start decay, but it would also leak its potent essence to the remaining enchantments causing their overcharge as well.
The task required to be addressed very similarly to the situation when he modified the sword for Nephis. The resulting Memory will be a hybrid rank, which isn't to say it's the only modification he wants to make.
He modified like ten Memories made of bone, not to mention he had seen the effects of Bone Singer. If he was to say something about such Memories, he would like to mention they more often drop from the abominations related to authority over the dead bodies. Bones aren't actually that great material to clash with a Nightmare Creature, but items granted by the Spell somehow make it work nicely, and even more than that.
Studying it was another daunting task, which he wouldn't even consider if not for his latest accomplishment. He entered his Soul Sea!
It took him three months to achieve that, but it finally paid off! Thinking about this he wondered how much time would be spent if he decided to not return to civilization. How much he would spend looking? A year? Maybe two years? Probably he would achieve that in the atmosphere of nervousness, desperate, and hiding, perhaps doing that only when there's nothing other to do than waiting. Gladly he returned, and all the help he could get from Cassie.
It was also a bit brazen for he did that just after declaring her he's going to try that again.
Unfortunately it doesn't mean he can abandon meditation. He still can't go into the Soul Sea at will. If he wants to do that again he has to sit down, and dive into it for an hour or two. But after the initial breakthrough he can now try to achieve the same faster, and upon more stimulating circumstances. Speaking of which he can finally stop taking so much of his time in the Sky Below. He was really sick of it anyway.
The reason why he was so eager to rediscover his Soul Sea is that he considered it as a requirement that has to be met before attempting to turn an Echo into a Shadow. Now as that requirement is already met it leaves him with one problem.
'I need an Echo.'
He didn't count too strictly, but with more than ten Corrupted abominations slaughtered every week, and the time that has passed, there's simply no way he's not already there. He gathered way more than enough Shadow Fragments to turn an Echo into a Shadow. Which leaves him with one thing to do, the Covetous Coffer must become an Echo.
'Damned. I forgot about that.'
It's not like he's unable to work on that. The problem is the importance of the Covetous Coffer. Currently it serves as a place for his weaving works. If he tried to modify everything inside what could happen? It was very possible that it would turn out fine, but there was also the possibility that everything inside would be damned.
Sunny calmed a bit, and decided on how to address the issue. He activated one of his avatars, and commanded him to craft another Eyed Boulder storage, and then move everything there. The task would take a few hours since he deciphered, and redesigned the enchantments required to create another storage. Even then it's going to take some time before it can be usable due to the process of balancing the air pressure. Then there's Kim who has to move the hydraulics, and Luster who has to move things from the training room for soldiers.
*ding*
'A client.'
It was a woman with blond hair. Sunny would guess they're blond, but to be fair he wasn't sure. Many things about that woman indicated she's different. Beneath the blond hair he could see black. Her eyebrows were unnaturally thick, eyelashes stupidly long. Lips treated with lipstick, lots of powder, obvious use of facial paint, wearing a white dress with pink fur…
Sunny had a really bad time believing that, but Blood Weave wouldn't lie to him. She really is an Awakened, and she has enough time, dedication, and an incomparable amount of courage just to ruin her own look with make up.
But looking at her he also knew she had to possess money.
"Good morning. What can I do for you?"
"I'm waiting for someone."
"Are you sure that while waiting you don't want to examine our products?"
"Here it is! I was waiting for you."
"it wouldn't be late."
Luster revealed a bracelet, one of the copies of the Autumn Leaf he crafted many times because… it's a relatively easy Memory to make, and something he could always put on the display, together with the copies of different minor Memories.
The woman showed a look of incredible excitement. She hugged it, she complimented it, took a photo with it, and declared they're going to the cinema to watch a movie about Kai. Luster slipped her a bill amounting to 20 soul shards, both dormant, and awakened, mostly awakened. She signed it, and returned to Luster.
Such bills are nothing strange in the shop. The Awakened keep their soul shards mostly in the Dream Realm, they can't bring them to the waking world without the help of a Saint. But now the Brilliant Emporium has mundane shops in many citadels. If the Awakened is anchored in the citadel with a shop of the Brilliant Emporium the bill can be paid through the shop. The shopkeeper will bring the shards with them, and Aiko will claim them
She gave the bracelet a light, short kiss, and left.
"Luster…"
"Yes, boss?"
"What just happened?"
"She bought a Memory. Isn't that what you wanted to see?"
"Why did she agree to pay so many soul shards."
"Dating apps."
"Dating apps?"
"Dating apps. I made dating profiles, spiced up photos a little, put some things in the description that those Memories are great for their zodiac constellations. It works almost every time."
"Zodiac… I don't get it."
"Neither I, but some ladies fall for that."
Sunny let Luster continue whatever he was doing. He checked up on some dating ups looking for he photos of his Memories. When he found them, he was still feeling disturbed by the discovery. Even a Memory can find a woman.
"And something like this worth 25 soul shards! Outrageous! I feel offended."
He outgrew the outskirts several times already, but 25 soul shards, but he still remembers how one shard could be a difference between being awfully poor, and the world of Awakened. Yet a woman was able to spend several times more, not even to be prettier, but just to feel like she has a boyfriend.
Oh, there were several women similar to the previous one who came to buy a Memory from Luster just because it appeared to be great according to a dating app manipulated somehow by a former womanizer.
He isn't exactly a great guy so he didn't have much against profiteering on idiots. Having an associate in profiteering on such people wasn't much worse. They know what they're buying. Seeing that Luster got everything pretty quickly, he concentrated on the armor.
Without the Spell telling him what the enchantments do he has to uncover their purpose on his own. And despite no language being involved there's a lot of analogies. In languages you usually have words that follow some kind of order that varies from meaning to meaning. Some are synonyms, some homonyms. Having to deal with a foreign, old, not-anymore-in-use language without someone to explain the meanings is a task that could easily annoy the brightest. The only saving grace is the fact that the Memory indeed has some understandable functions so in a sense some of its meaning is already uncovered.
But even if the Spell was here, it wouldn't help that much. Thanks to the Spell, and his Bloodweave he was able to see the list of enchantments with their purposes, it wouldn't explain much of their structure. Let's take the Sin of Solace. The Spell revealed to him that there are five enchantments. The first for damaging the mind of the target, the second for insane sharpness, and durability, the third for light area mind attack, the forth empowering the blade with the wielder's madness, and the fifth making the master descend into some kind of mystical insanity.
Are these enchantments separate from each other? Not at all. Every enchantment was a part of the complex mechanism that turned madness into a very potent weapon. Similarly to reading the runes just depending on the explanations provided by the Spell is a recipe for an illusion.
Looking at the logic of the armor he could tell its basic purpose, which was protection based on fear. The first enchantment is meant to enhance the armor, physically with some idea the bone armor has frightening endurance. The second sows mild intimidation in the minds of looking at it based on the aura of death, producing it at the expense of essence. The last one consumed fear, either the wielders', and the adversaries', turning it into an additional reinforcement.
The armor… was certainly useful, albeit he was not sure if the potential was worth the price.
Sunny already could see it will be really tricky to upgrade that particular Memory. The three enchantments were strongly related to each other. If he isolated one to empower it with a transcendent soul shard that would lead to a serious loss of potential. The armor wouldn't benefit anymore from fear.
There was also a possibility that he could somehow dilute that essence, and feed it to something. Sunny considered it as an opportunity to apply a new enchantment of his own design. Well, not entirely his own, but he had to be quite creative to develop it. He would call it [Living Bone], which was based on [Living Stone] from his Mantle of the Underworld. Similarly to [Living Stone] it would grant the armor an ability to restore itself at the cost of essence, but Sunny didn't want to finish it there.
Nether while designing [Living Stone] was obsessed over the secret of making living things. That notion applied also to the Mantle. Its main function was to play along with golems, stone statues forcibly turned into living beings. Sunny hoped to accentuate that aspect of the enchantment, and make the bone at the same time a bit more flexible, but without compromising the durability. Also it would have a restorative effect on the weave in case there were some additional problems to deal with on the way.
He was about to start writing down whatever he managed to decipher.
"What's going on? Where is he?"
"Oh, hey, honey."
"Don't honey me today. You're pushing your luck."
He heard a voice that belonged to Kim. Luster sounded nervously. Sunny got up from his Shadow Chair, and came to see what's going on. Kim was burning with anger, and Luster was under the fire.
"I swear I didn't do anything!"
"You always say such things. But how many times have I seen you eyeing other ladies?"
"They were clients! Just clients!"
"Suure… That's why you look so excited. Just about clients."
Sunny decided he has to say something, before it gets out of hand.
"It's really this way. They left like a one-seventy of soul shards. It's good money."
Kim didn't seem to be convinced even a bit.
"Of course, they… What? You made them pay for your fun?"
It didn't work well. She was still angry at Luster. So he tried another trick. Manners.
"Good morning, Kim. How's your day?"
Luster seemed to be relieved, and spared a hopeful look at Sunny.
"Boss, great you're here. Please, you have to tell her!"
But then she started asking questions to him, and head to answer them.
"Did my husband try to lure ladies here?"
He frowned. They were here to buy things, but…
"Yes, he did, but it's not what it seems. I guess."
"So what is it? Did he try to spice up the photos he has made to make it look better?"
These were the photos of the Memories, his products, but…
"Yes, he did. Those photos…"
"Did he use dating apps, and applied some bullshit descriptions to make it appear it match them great?"
"That... He also did."
Luster paled with every answer. Sunny wanted to say something more, but Kim cut him off. Then boiling-even-hotter Kim turned to Luster.
"Luster, do you have anything to add?"
"First of all, they mean nothing to me. No one was as beautiful as you…"
Suddenly all the metaphorical fire disappeared, and it was replaced with a deadly icy glare. The silence lasted for a few seconds… Then the embers erupted again.
"That does it! To the car! Now!"
Kim summoned a piece of heavy armor. She grabbed Luster by the back of his shirt, and started going to the exit dragging him behind him. Luster's feet were going across the floor, but Kim seemed to not care much about this.
Luster looked at Sunny frightened. He, and his boss looked at each other in silence. Then they left. Sunny looked around, and sighed. He had to do the rest himself.