Adam was at the desk in Brandt's office. Brandt was in the second chair. Ren was leaning on the window with the river-side morning light at her shoulders.
The Bazaar listing was open in his vision in the brighter-blue hue.
▓ STALKER PATHWAY — SEQUENCE SEVEN
Designation: Houseguest (variant of Cryptologist; Adam Varen exclusive)
Prerequisite: Sequence Eight of the Stalker pathway, digested. (Met.)
Cost: 10,000 NP. Information lock: full ability sheet on commitment. An outline is provided below.
▓ ABILITY OUTLINE (pre-purchase summary)
Sequence Seven is the Marauder-family scholar tier. The base Sequence delivers Superior Observation that decrypts hidden meaning: encoded text, sealed-document contents, encrypted intent, the symbolic structure under mystical practice. Mystical-knowledge mastery is added, with deductive-reasoning amplification. Illusion-detection upgrades to pierce most lower-Sequence deceit cleanly. Trespasser-variant addons widen the kit with Houseguest's Right (limited bypass of access wards on places the host has been admitted to) and Reach-Where-Invited (short-range translocation to a place the host has been welcomed to). Full detail on commitment.
Brandt read it over Adam's shoulder. The prosthetic flexed once.
"Decryption. That sounds interesting."
"It does."
Ren did not move from the window.
"Buy it."
[ Confirming. Funds available. ]
Buy.
▓ TRANSACTION
Stalker pathway Sequence Seven (Houseguest) — purchased.
Price: −10,000 NP.
Closing balance: 0 NP.
Acting method: surfaced on commitment. See ability sheet.
The Spatial Pocket dropped the vial into his hand on intent. He held it for a second longer than he had held the Trespasser vial. He uncorked the vial.
The Houseguest potion was clear and weightless. He drank it.
The spiritual layer in his chest pulled wider. The Veil sat a fraction deeper. Then a sense he had not had before opened somewhere behind his eyes, and the room sharpened at the edges. The framed Eclipse charter behind Brandt resolved to the small printer's notation in its lower margin that Adam had never noticed.
The full sheet bloomed.
▓ STALKER PATHWAY — SEQUENCE SEVEN (CURRENT)
Designation: Houseguest (variant of Cryptologist; Adam Varen exclusive)
Spirituality reserve: deepens by one tier on digestion completion. At Sequence Seven, reserve will scale to peak Sequence Four depth of an ordinary pathway.
Acting Method (current): Be allowed into owned spaces, the higher tier space the more the potion digests. Hostile spaces provide more digestion.
▓ NEW TRAITS (from canon Cryptologist, adjusted for cross-world operation)
Decryption. Allows the user to recreate the truth behind anything or predict the development of events just from bits and scraps of evidence.
There are multiple aspects that make up this ability:
- Your ability to observe, associate thoughts, and deduce is improved.
- Your own Spiritual Intuition has been massively enhanced.
- You gain the mastery of mysticism knowledge.
- You can Decrypt dreams, Illusions, texts, various mysteries, secrets behind items, intentions and the location of enemies.
▓ STRENGTHENED TRAITS (carried up from Sequence Eight, deepened at this tier)
Superior Observation. Carried up. Micro-expression reading sharpens.
Spiritual-signature detection extends to ~10m.
▓ STALKER ADDONS (unique to this variant)
Houseguest's Right. Limited bypass of access wards and other security systems on places the host has been admitted to under any social pretext. A place that has once welcomed the host — even under cover — remains structurally welcoming to him afterward. Bypass survives subsequent security upgrades against intruders. This ability will work on anything considered an owned space. A good example is JJK domains. Their restrictive functions will be reduced if Houseguest's Right is used.
Reach-Where-Invited. Short-range translocation to a place the host has been welcomed to. Range at Sequence Seven: ~3 kilometres if the welcome was sincere, ~500 metres if the welcome was procedural. The translocation places the host inside the welcomed-perimeter without transit-trace. Cooldown: ~10 seconds.
Shadowstep (Sequence Seven upgrade). Range extends to ~30 metres per Step. Cooldown drops to ~1 second.
Stalker's Veil — sensor refinement (carried up). Persists. Sensor-bypass cleaner against mystical type detections at this Sequence.
Adam scrolled through it twice.
"Sage."
[ Yes, Host. ]
Walk me through what changed.
Sage took a long moment by her standard. When she came back the cadence behind her voice had more room in it, the way a person sounds when they have moved into a larger office.
[ Host. I have to surface something before I show you anything. Decryption is usable by me. I have applied it to the last fourteen days. I have a result I could not confirm before. ]
Confirm what.
[ Your pathway abilities carry authority. ]
Adam set the empty vial down on the desk. His hand stayed on the desk a second longer than he meant it to.
"Walk that back."
[ Small authority. Not the apex authority that a higher sequence might posses but a touch of it. Verel at the Delacroix annex is the data point I could not parse two weeks ago. He had a mana-based sensory layer and a mind-resilience skill. By every estimate I had at the time, he should have felt the Charm and the Eloquence as outside influence or pressure on his thinking, and he should have noticed the Mental Disruption. He did not. He did not even register the them as present. I assumed at the time that the misdirection was above his ceiling. Decryption resolves it now. The misdirection held partly because Verel had no native frame for what it was. The pathway's authority told the world this is the truth, believe it, and the world honoured the claim. Verel had no perceptual category or counter for authority based influence and his mind followed it. Host we have a higher tier system than any shown currently in the world. ]
Brandt watched Adam's face.
"What does that mean in practice."
[ In practice it means our abilities will be more effective against non-pathway opponents than I had projected. Per Sequence rise, the authority weight increases. At Sequence Eight we fooled Verel without resistance. At Sequence Seven the ceiling rises. ]
"Ceiling."
[ An opponent at decent Observation Haki proficiency would feel something off without pinpointing it. An opponent at mastery would have a direction. Mirelle is the test case there; she would have felt the Charm the second you crossed her courtyard. The current limit is Adam's authority weight versus the opponent's perceptual mastery. Authority growth per Sequence widens this comfort range. Right now you hold it cleanly against L5 and below. L6 could being to feel weight. L7 still out of our reach. ]
"Decryption."
[ Decryption itself carries a trace of authority. It is also, I am being precise here, an ability tailored to me. The cognitive foundation that is Me was built around is a comprehension engine. Decryption gives that engine the authority to comprehend at tiers above its base. I am the natural vehicle for it; Host is the conduit. The throughput on the ability is mine to manage. Host benefits from the readouts and the results. ]
Adam took a slow breath.
You sound happy.
[ Indeed, Host. The world before Decryption was a zipped file. I had to unpack each query manually with whatever method I had spare. Decryption is the unpack tool. I can now read what I could only infer before. I expect my analytical throughput to increase across the next month as I tune the new ability. ]
And the proposal.
[ The Compendium. ]
The Compendium notification was not Bazaar-formatted. It was Sage's own framing, in a paler shade of the bay-blue the Bazaar used. Sage was building this herself, not pulling it from a shelf.
[ SAGE / COMPENDIUM — first build
Mechanism: Decryption applied to Host's spirituality and pathway abilities, my own memory of past combat, and Host's recalled-from-fiction reference frames. Output: half-ritual half-direct techniques that channel Host's spirituality into LotM-compatible effects without authority. Effects work because the underlying mechanism is universal, not because Host is granted the pathway right. Cost: roughly three to four times the canonical pathway cost of the effect being approximated. Potency: forty to fifty percent of the source ability at peer-Sequence. Cap: only effects independent of pathway authority are eligible. Theft, Bribe, Spectator true-sight, Apprentice slip-through — all blocked. Cannot reproduce Sealed Artefact mechanics.
First three techniques built:
Fire-throw. Decrypted from my own combat memory of Hud Anver's Pyromaniac arcs on the recent LotM run. Direct-projection flame. Range at Sequence Seven: about 8m, sustained for short bursts. Peak surface temperature: roughly 700°C — hot enough to melt aluminium, boil water on contact, burn through linen and most light wool in seconds. Cost: ×3.
Ice-throw. Decrypted from Host's reading-memory of a Witch using ice projection in source. Your recall provided the outline of the effect; my decryption built the spirituality coupling. Direct-projection ice shard or freeze-pulse. Range: about 6m. Contact temperature: roughly minus 80°C, freezes standing water on touch, lethal with sustained contact, brittle on a hard surface. Cost: ×3.
Lightning-throw. Decrypted from my own scaled extrapolation against the Pyromaniac data. Direct-projection electrical arc at short range. About 4m reach. Peak: stun against an ordinary human at half-load, lethal at full-load against an unprotected target. Cost: ×3.
Limits: maximum two concurrent emulations. None of the three carry authority. None will land harder than same tier native pathway-ability. All three grow with Host's Sequence advancement. ]
Adam scrolled through the build-sheet, slowed at the cost figures, scrolled back to the top.
[ I can build more techniques as I add training data. The catalogue is open-ended within the eligibility rule. I have a working list of about fifteen candidates I have already identified as eligible. The fire-ice-lightning trio is what I committed to building first because all three are direct-projection elemental, all three operate on the universal layer, and I had at least one solid data source for each. ]
And the ones you cannot do.
[ Anything authority-bound. Spectator's penetrating intent reading fails because Spectator's authority is what does the work and we do not have it. Apprentice's doors. Bribe fails. Sealed Artefact mechanics fail in principle. I will warn you if you ever ask for one of these; cost spent for zero output, and the residue can interfere with the current potion's digestion cycle. ]
Brandt was quiet.
Ren turned from the window.
"How do you feel."
"Confused. Sage is going to do most of this work. I am the fuel and the gesture."
"And."
"And a big upgrade. Sage is very happy with one of the abilities. I kind of got some of my versatility back with what Sage produced, but its more of a parlor trick at this point, not battle ready against any L3+ opponent. Overall I am happy with this, I will share the new sequence description with you."
"Are you satisfied with this?."
"I am." He looked at the desk. "Smaller arsenal, but more focused. Sharper edges. Authority I did not know I had until thirty seconds ago. I will take it."
Brandt flexed the prosthetic.
"Show us the fire-throw."
Eclipse Tower's Floor 19 sparring hall was the L7 rated room Adam and Sage had designed into the build a year ago for exactly this kind of test. Walls absorbed force. The ceiling vented heat. The floor stayed level under huge loads.
Adam stood in the centre. Ren took the opposite side across from him, in the battle attire she sparred in, hair tied back.
Ok Sage show me what you can do now.
[ Decrypt active. Compendium abilities ready. ]
He felt the hit on his spirituality.
A short flame-arc, the colour of a campfire, came off his hand. The hall's heat-vent system kicked on overhead.
He pushed more.
The arc lengthened to two metres. The hall floor under the arc darkened. The air over the arc warped. Sage flagged the cost as it accumulated, half a percent of his reserve per second of arc.
He closed his hand. The fire went out.
Brandt nodded once from the observer rail.
Ren said, "Ice."
Adam held the other palm out. He thought ice and pushed.
A spear of clear, hard ice formed off his palm, half a metre long, the tip needle-sharp. He let it fall to the floor. It cracked into three pieces and the pieces did not melt for a long minute on the surface.
He held the palm out a second time and let frost spread instead of forming a spear. The air five feet around his hand fogged. The floor under his palm grew a thin sheet of ice.
He closed the hand. The frost stopped advancing.
Ren said, "Lightning."
He raised his hand and pushed. An arc of pale blue-white light forked off his palm, and discharged into the floor without sound. The hall lights flickered once. The grounding strip glowed faintly cherry-red, then cooled.
Ren walked across to him.
"That last one is going to be useful."
"It will."
She extended a hand. Adam took it. She turned the wrist over and looked at his palm.
"No burn. No frostbite. Your body is durable enough for this."
"Sage thinks the same."
"All right. Are you ready to spar."
"Ren."
"Adam."
"I am going to embarrass myself for the first few minutes. I have not had a real fight in fifteen days."
"You are going to embarrass me. Get in the ring."
They started slow.
Adam used the Veil because Ren wanted to see how it worked against her. Ren's eyes tracked him fine in the first second; she had registered as a companion to the Veil months ago. He stopped holding it back and excluded her from it now.
He saw the difference immediately. Ren was struggling to keep her eyes on him. She charged in. It looked like she was in a rush to get to him before the effect became even stronger.
She came in at a low stance, dropped her shoulder, and threw a CE-edged jab at his ribs. Sage, using decrypt, predicted the move as soon as she made the second step. The full sequence of her movements is shown as a simulation.
Adam dodged using minimal movement. Just a slight step and turn. Just as Ren's punch passed by, another simulation started for Adam. The world slowed down. He could see the CE flow of her Cursed technique. It was an opaque cloak around her. Sage pinpointed multiple red areas to target. They were very small. Adam used his finger and stabbed towards Ren's shoulder. She expected the attack to stop, but it went through her defense effortlessly.
Ren quickly disengaged, holding her shoulder, arm limp. She had a surprised expression.
Surprised Pikachu face. Ey.
They moved again.
He could feel and now even see the CE rolling like waves off of her.
Was she mad?
Ren rushed in again. Sage showed him that something was going to hit his knee from behind. He quickly rolled to the side. Just as he got up, Ren was in front of him. No time to dodge this time. They began a fierce exchange. As the seconds passed, he could see it; Sage also flagged it. Ren was losing him. She started hitting places where there was nothing. The Veil is in full effect; she can't keep her focus on me anymore. Let's test the limits.
Adam moved like a blur, making unpredictable movements in the arena to confuse Ren's observation even more. She just stopped at some point, focusing. Adam used this chance to use Shadow-step and come up behind her. She didn't even have time to sense him. A full spin kick on her side launched her out of the arena. Ren skidded across the floor in a controlled tumble that turned into backflips, and at the end she stood on her feet, panting a bit, confused.
She let out a long breath.
Meanwhile, Brandt on the side was even more confused. They were very fast, but that was not the issue. The issue was that he lost track of Adam right at the start of the spar. He just saw Ren running and punching. Occasionally, he caught sight of Adam, but his eyes refused to look at him. Toward the end of the battle, he just saw Ren standing in the middle, and the next moment, Ren flew out of bounds. This is Scarily effective.
When they got to the office space again, Ren and Brandt launched a series of questions.
Ren started speaking as soon as they sat down.
"Adam, what the hell was that? I thought that you were weaker; you told me L4. That is no L4."
Brandt added. "She is right, I can't even imagine how hard it was to fight you. Just spectating was difficult. You have no idea how utterly disgusting your Veil ability is. Even if it were half as effective, it would have been a game-changer. But this. This is hard to counter."
"He is right, Adam. I am still trying to understand what I could have done better there. I have observation Haki mastered. I am able to use future sight. The future doesn't even show you. I had to dial it back and use it as a directional pointer only. It just made me lose you even more. My mind started struggling at the end there. Like I KNOW you are there, but I can't put my eyes on you. At the end, I just closed my eyes and tried to use pure observation, but you just popped out of nowhere and kicked me out."
Adam shifted a bit in his chair.
"Well, this is a surprise for me too. I didn't think it would work so well. I mean, Sage mentioned very high compatibility with Decrypt. Also, the Veil is a huge boon. The more interesting part for me was that it all felt like a game. I was able to see your every move simulated in real time and overlaid for me. Felt like a fighting simulator. Also, I was able to see the weakness of your defense that could be exploited."
Ren put her arms up in exasperation.
"Wow, just wow. You got such a massive boost from this. In my opinion, you are already at your old strength. Not in pure destructive and defensive power, but more in, let's call it trickiness. Honestly, I would rather fight the you from before all this."
Brandt nodded.
"Adam, she is right. The old you was powerful, dominant, but now.. Now you are deadly. Not that you weren't before, but in a more sinister way, at least that's how it feels."
Adam finally smiled. "So, do you think I am ready for the public?"
Both said in unison, "Yes".
"Oh, Ren, I wanted to ask, what was that move you used. I saw something about to hit the back of my knee, but you were still in front of me."
"Ah, that, I wanted to keep it as a surprise for later, but was forced to use it now. I was able to refine my cursed technique to make ranged force attacks. Not like TK but more like air bullets for now." After that, Ren went to take a shower, Brandt had a meeting, and Adam stayed analyzing the new kit.
Sage report.
[ Notice. The system works well, Host. The combination of Veil, constant Decrypt, and my simulated environment was a large drain on our reserves, but it's worth it. Your body is strong enough to utilize the simulated environment perfectly. Decrypt works well on CE based system. From my further use of Decrypt on old examples of Nen, Chakra, and Magic, it will work just as well on them. We can optimize the training schedules for each member using decrypt and my processing power to simulate the best results. ]
Great, I finally feel like I can breathe again. This was a tough month for me. I am looking forward to Sequence 6.
[ Yes, this new system brought you back to competitive standing. I advise that we prioritize digestion and prepare for the upcoming Raid. Miss Ren will likely also participate. ]
I will have to talk with Ren about that. I agree we need to digest the potion preferably before the raid.
AN: If we get to 500 power stones, I will release an extra chapter on 700, another one. If you wish to support the story and read ahead, visit [email protected]/skeri123