Chapter 59 - New Threads

Chatfield and Upgrade went out to get them some coffees, which left Blathnaid sitting in the chair behind the desk. Her eyes were still locked onto the small fabric crest clutched in her hands. Sal could appreciate how much of a whirlwind the entire day must have been for her, as she was unwittingly looped into Chatfield’s machinations. What had started as an experiment to see whether she could utilize the full capability of her powers had turned into a proven hypothesis for Chatfield’s proposal. Now, she was left with her own thoughts as she held the Challenge crest.

“You feeling a bit better?” Sal asked as he leaned on the desk opposite her. “Sorry if it felt like we ambushed you with all this. Chatfield is pretty intimidating, isn’t he?”

Blathnaid nodded before glancing up at Sal. “He’s going to take this back when he realizes I couldn’t complete the set.” She laughed humorlessly as she placed the crest onto the table beside the hunter set. “Or when he realizes how weak I am with my power.”

Her tone was resigned, and Sal couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. Her power was limited because of the knots in her weave, and it was holding her back. To her, it would probably feel like failure and not working hard enough. Sal knew that nothing she did was likely to change the results of her weave.

“About that…” Sal said tentatively.

Upgrade had given him a pointed look as she left the room with Chatfield, and Sal knew what she meant. With a cautious tone, he gently tested the water with her. “What if I told you I was able to help you out with your power? Nothing dramatic, just a little lift in your current capabilities.”

Blathnaid gave him a skeptical look before shaking her head. “I’ve already thought about equipment that would boost my proficiency. I made a whole set of tools specifically around tailoring, and while they help, they don’t matter when my internal essence is so low. I need access to more reserves to make the designs the way I want. And even if I could tether to an external core, it wouldn’t be my essence in the end and would likely ruin my flow.” She caught herself and gave Sal a reassuring smile.

“I’m sorry, but this is something I’ve known all my life. I don’t mean to be negative. I know you’re just trying to help.”

Sal leaned further over the table. “Humor me. Would you let me try something? All I’d ask is that you keep it a secret.”

Blathnaid stared at him before shaking her head. “I trust you, Sal, but you need to give me more information than that. I don’t want to try any drugs, if that’s what it is. I know you manage to stay up all night somehow, but that won’t work for me.”

Sal smiled and gestured at himself. “My ability isn’t Appraisal. I took that ability from my father when I was a kid. It’s actually something called Skill Master, which allows me to replicate the abilities of other people.”

Blathnaid didn’t look as surprised as he had expected her to be. Before he could continue, she pointed at the doorway.

“You took Upgrade’s ability, didn’t you? That’s why you’re able to craft all these things and make blueprints?” She didn’t look annoyed, but confused.

She was half right, and Sal needed to explain before she jumped to more conclusions.

“Yes, but I also took Appraisal and Restoration. Both from my parents. When I combined them all, with Upgrade’s ability, it created a whole new ability called Mythcrafter. I’m able to craft things up to the Mythic grade, but it’s being kept as a secret from people so the guilds don’t try to steal me away.”

Sal gestured at the blueprint and the equipment on the desk. “Chatfield enlisted me to help him create designs that could evolve over time, so we could increase the standard of equipment at the academy. He has a big plan for it all, which was why he was so happy that you managed to create all this.”

Blathnaid stared blankly at Sal before a grin appeared. “So all that equipment we used in the tournament was made by you? That sword that Anthony uses, too?”

Sal nodded and pointed at his eyes. “My Skill Master ability doesn’t just apply to me. I’m able to interact with the internal threads of others, similar to a Body Manipulator. But instead of manipulating the body, I interact with the ability.”

Blathnaid’s grin disappeared as her jaw hung open. She couldn’t formulate any words as she stared at Sal in horror.

“Which is why…” Sal pointed at Blathnaid. “I would like to try to help you with your ability. It’s not invasive and you won’t feel any discomfort or pain. I’ve already done it with Divinity, but that was by accident and before I knew what I was doing. I did it with Upgrade, too, and helped her past her dependency on an external core. She knows this secret too, but Chatfield doesn’t.”

Blathnaid bolted to her feet and grasped Sal’s hands. “Please! Yes. I trust you.” Her eyes were wild, almost desperate as she clawed at his hand.

All her usual composure was gone, and Sal was alarmed at how quickly she had turned around on the idea. He wanted to explain more about the calculations from his visor, and reassure her that it would be safe, but Blathnaid didn’t look like she cared about that. All that existed was a pleading desire in her eyes to have her ability improved. Tears formed at the edges of her eyes, and Sal realized that he had been dangling a carrot in front of her, and he felt like an asshole.

“Let’s get started,” Sal responded with a slight croak in his voice, gesturing for her to take her seat.

He wanted to help her as much as possible. Although he had promised Upgrade that he would only undo a single thread or two to give her more access to essence absorption, he had already decided to give her as much help as it was safe to do.

Blathnaid sat down and waited expectantly, not sure what she needed to do. Her shoulders trembled, and Sal knew that it wasn’t fear from the bright smile on her face.

Without wasting any time, Sal activated Skill Master with his visor. The knotted tangle of web appeared, and he studied the different knots on the outside of the weave. Percentages appeared, showcasing the minor improvements and risk factors. Sal reached forward and unraveled some of the outliers, being careful to double-check that none of them posed any harm to Blathnaid.

The first knot was tight, despite the fact that it was on the edge of the weave, but after a concentrated effort, it finally came free. The percentages around that knot changed to reflect the new output of the weave, increasing the positive outcomes and minimizing the risk. In contrast, the percentages of some of the knots in the center dropped. It felt more like a puzzle than a solution, with Sal having to pick the most optimal knots to target.

He counted almost thirty knots in total, which seemed like an impossibility compared to the ones he had looked at before. By undoing four of them, he could see a definite improvement but it still wasn’t enough. Sal focused on the center of the weave and instinctively felt like it was being strangled from the inside. All the weaves he had seen before had the most amount of power in their center, like a star. If he thought of it like a constellation, freeing up the debris that was orbiting the star helped, but it didn’t fundamentally fix the issues.

Sal picked the largest knot and saw that it carried a slight risk of causing harm to Blathnaid. There was a huge improvement to be had if it worked, but that small chance of it being harmful made him pause. He could have asked her for consent to take the risk, but in her current state, she’d just accept it.

Sal debated it before moving to a safer place in the weave. He didn’t want to take any risks with this and prove Quest right about the terrifying nature of his ability. Pushing those useless thoughts aside, Sal focused his efforts on the center-most knots, targeting those with a guaranteed success rate. For each one he undid, it changed the success rate of the surrounding ones. Sal kept an eye on the big knot that he had considered before; the risk was reducing, but not near a guarantee.

Sal ended up having to redo a few of the knots to keep his target in the positive numbers. It was the end goal for this session, and he had already undone eight. By someone else’s standard, this would have been a monumental increase in capability, but Sal wasn’t satisfied. Blathnaid was his friend, and he never wanted her to feel inadequate again.

Yet, he had to admit that he was hitting a block. His fixation on that giant knot was thwarting what could have been a perfectly executed procedure. Sal resolved himself and kept working on the knots, reapplying them when they had a negative impact on the giant one. By the fourteenth knot, he had managed to bring the giant one within a couple of percentage points of failure. Any temptation to take the chance was quashed instantly as he experimented with the others. It took a painstaking amount of trial and error before he was finally rewarded with a perfect result on the giant knot. The visor wasn’t capable of lying, and it finally gave him the green light on unraveling it.

Just being able to target it was enough to bring a smile to Sal’s face, but that joy was cut short by the complexity that followed. It was an absolute nightmare to work the threads free. All the slack he had gained by undoing sixteen knots had given him some breathing room, but it was persistently trying to remain tied. Sal fueled more essence into his attempts, and it became slightly easier to pull at it.

Persistence won out before his essence ran dry, and Sal was met with what looked like a reasonably healthy weave. His visor did another check on his work and highlighted a few areas that needed to be knotted to maintain the new capability. He was loath to put them in place, but the visor instructed that it was the best method. In that moment, as though reading his mind, the visor prompted him with an alert that the target would need to acclimatize to the new level of ability before more knots could be safely undone. It seemed reasonable, and Sal disengaged his power with a sigh.

He was grateful that he had propped himself up against the desk, as it felt like it was the only thing keeping him upright. His essence had taken a beating, but with a single look at Blathnaid’s expression, it was worth it.

Sal used his visor to Analyze the changes and smiled in satisfaction.

Ability	Skill Name: Construct | Rating: VI Skill Category: Invention Skill Mastery: 64% Skill Efficiency: 100% Progress to Next Rating: 0% Evolutionary Capability: Yes Potential Cap: XV Natural Synergy: Concept | Epicraft | Appraisal
Essence	Essence Type: Invention Essence Gates: 80 Essence Absorption Rate: 71% Essence Control: 23% Essence Refinement: 52% Essence Calibration: 58%

Sal went through the list and tried to make sense of it all. He wished that he had saved the previous data to see the improvements, but he could tell from memory alone that her skill rating had jumped from three to six, which was a massive leap. Her gates had increased by twenty, which was something that confused him greatly. How could the gates change from an ability becoming more powerful?

Sal scanned the list and saw that her potential cap had increased by five, and it looked like her essence absorption rate had skyrocketed. It looked like control and refinement had both decreased, but calibration had gone up?

“This…” Blathnaid’s voice cracked as she closed her eyes and concentrated. “I can feel the difference. It’s…like there are lights in my chest, and I can see them!” Tears flowed down her face as she laughed and explored her internal weave.

Sal smiled, happy he was able to help her. It was an incredible feeling, and he wondered whether this was the type of Hero he should be: someone who helped others reach their potential.

When Blathnaid finally opened her eyes, Sal met her gaze with a smile. “You’ve just ranked up your ability. How does it feel?”

Blathnaid grinned. “I’ll tell you after I fix those shoes.”