Glonek looked uncomfortable, and I wasn’t going to lie, that made me feel good. It was petty, especially considering that Zoltan had been the real asshole here, but I remembered how much of a jerk he had been at Kalnislaw Estate too. In fact, this whole meeting wouldn’t have happened if Lord Kalnislaw hadn’t been willing to make some sort of compromise.

This guy was just here to take advantage of that.

“Ah, you’re rather bold, aren’t you…Cultist Moreland?” he said.

“That’s not exactly an answer to my question.”

Glonek laughed, his fangs glinting in the low light. “It’s highly uncustomary for members of a Great House to join a cult or anything of the sort.” He turned to the others with an expression that I had a hard time figuring out. It was one of those faces meant to draw people to his side of things. “All stemming from the Constraint of Houses.”

“The Constraint of Houses?” I asked. My question clearly echoed the curiosity of everyone else nearby. Even the trio of Aurier, Guille, and Santoire had drawn closer.

“Yes.” Glonek cleared his throat briefly. “Long ago, the Great Houses formed a pact to limit their absorption of other institutions and communities of Zairgon. You see, before the founding of the city itself, the Great Houses were the greatest powers in the area, and their primary goal was to ensure their supremacy over the other great powers.

“To which end, they went about claiming any and all sources of power for themselves, regardless of the cost. You can imagine how much conflict stemmed from such priorities, yes? So, during the founding of Zairgon, the strongest ones present formed a strict pact that all the greater powers would adhere to—essentially, the Houses could only cultivate and raise the Paths they naturally possessed or acquired, and were not allowed to claim Paths via other means.”

“Other means…” Aurier said.

I was starting to get it. “Like joining a cult to gain a Path of the Acolyte.”

“Precisely!” Glonek said.

“Hmm. That seems a bit harsh.”

“It is. However, the Paths the Houses possessed are naturally rather powerful. They were not only capable of manifesting Racial Paths rather quickly but also had Unique Paths they could pass down through their lineage.” The vampire paused for a moment. “And of course, they weren’t entirely forbidden from acquiring new Paths. Members would just need to leave the Greater House.”

I frowned. “What about Hamsik, then?”

“Young Master Hamsik… well, bastards are a bit of a complicated case. For instance, House Kalnislaw cannot legally allow him to control the House in any direct capacity, even if he is allowed to take up secondary positions. However, Houses are allowed to induct bastard children as full members, in which case, they would then need to drop all outside associations, such as with the Sun Cult.”

“But would it matter?” I asked. “Since he already has the Path of the Acolyte, or whatever it is for him. Unless, you’re saying there’s a way to drop a Path.”

Glonek slowly smiled. “And there you find a legal loophole, yes?” His fangs came out, almost like he was intent on drawing blood. “If you aren’t already familiar with loopholes, then allow me to enlighten you that they aren’t often closed.”

The way he said, it almost sounded like he was aware I was only here because of a legal loophole.

Sacrificing living people was illegal in Zairgon. However, the law specifically stated that Sacrificing citizens of Zairgon was forbidden. Not being a citizen of Zairgon, or a resident of Ephemeroth in general, there was no legal repercussions against spilling my blood and blowing my brains out while burning my body on a pyre.

Back then, I had decided against questioning why someone from outside Zairgon couldn’t have just been kidnapped into the city. Now, I had a different query.

“Then why don’t other Houses make use of the same loopholes?” I asked.

“Because, despite the lack of legal justice, there are ramifications. Other Great Houses would freeze you out. Wealthy merchants and trading guilds and houses would cancel contracts because of pressure from other Great Houses. A Councillor forced to fix a law because you bypassed its spirit if not the letter would see you as an enemy, more or less.”

I took a deep breath. This guy was good. And annoying. “None of which ended up answering my question, Glonek. Are you or aren’t you willing to be a member of the Cult of Sun? Which shouldn’t be a problem, since you’re even less of an official member of House Kalnislaw than Hamsik.”

It wasn’t that I was trying to be rude. I was just getting to the point.

Glonek affected a sigh, which made me wonder if vampires even needed to breathe. They were functionally immortal, weren’t they? Until they got splashed with holy water or a stake driven through the heart, that was.

“Alright,” Glonek said. “I agree to be an official member of the Cult of Sun. So, how do we begin?”

I grinned. “Don’t worry, I’ll induct you personally.”

It was the same process as usual. Having Glonek drink from the chalice that Escinca was fond of using, then going through the same chants as before, all while asking Glonek to summon a modicum of faith into Arl, the Banished God of the Sun.

He went through it pretty respectfully. I honestly had no complaints. He didn’t even show any reluctance to any part of the procedure.

Maybe it helped that he wasn’t a snooty noble by birth, as far as I could tell.

“And now, let’s finish with the chant,” I said. “We—”

[ Path Interaction

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Your Paths of Newborn Star and Acolyte have discovered an interaction.

Transporting…]

A surge of energy rose up and claimed my consciousness, wiping away the sight of the vampire-turned-cultist before me and everything else inside the temple. Instead, I was lost to darkness again.

Alright, now it was getting actually annoying. First it happened during a regular prayer session, now it happened when I was inducting someone into the cult? What was next, transporting my consciousness into another vision when I was just talking with other cultists and followers?

The visions followed soon after. I was looking up at the titanic figure once again, the one with the body made of lightless night and a head that was a blistering, void-devouring star.

Except, the star wasn’t trying to pull me in this time. Instead, I was sinking. The same unfathomably deep darkness that the god had risen out of was now drawing me in. It was annoying that we were separate beings now. I quite preferred being a god with a burning star for a head. At least I had come out of cosmic quicksand then, instead of going down into it.

But the tug was irresistible, and I had no way of freeing myself. I had no body, no real power of my own.

Or did I?

As the murk swallowed me, as the sight of the distant stars calling back to the god with the sun for a head faded to nothingness, I started getting new visions. Were these memories that I was sinking into?

I had no frame of reference to tell, of course. All I had were more images flashing past me, a vista that was a lot more normal. Too normal, actually. This was a world with a proper sun, a sky that was blue, with green grass and living trees and everything else that. It was honestly frankly amazing to see a world as pretty and normal as Earth.

None of which took away from my annoyance. I had been in the middle of something. It didn’t matter what in the world this Path Interaction business was really supposed to be, but I was absolutely done letting it control me.

So, I just Sacrificed it.

I wasn’t at all sure if it was possible. That wasn’t going to stop me from trying. This vision had to be my vision, so if I wanted to Sacrifice it, then I should be able to.

My eyes took in a scene unfolding before me, of a young figure rising from a lake. Looked like a Rakshasa but I wasn’t totally sure from this distance. But who cared. Even if my body wasn’t here, my mana didn’t necessarily need to be tied to my physical presence.

So I focused. This vision was mine. All I saw belonged to me. I didn’t have eyes to close and just pretend that none of this was happening, but screw it, I was going through all this. That made it my experience. I didn’t have a mouth to utter a switch, but I didn’t care. If I didn’t have the right to Sacrifice my experience, then who the fuck did?

White sparks grew out everywhere. They started as little strands here and there, barely perceptible, but as I maintained my focus, more and more of them gleamed and slithered to life.

I didn’t have a body to feel my mana coming to life around me. It was there, I was using it, I was making it do what mana was supposed to do—bring my Aspects to life. And the evidence of it was materializing all around me, the threads of white mana digging into reality itself and turning everything around me into an alabaster blaze.

For a second, I was lost in whiteness. It was the opposite of the darkness that started of these Path Interaction visions. A canvas of nothingness yet again, but a very different flavour this time.

And then I was back, staggering on my feet a little.

[ Sacrifice

You have Sacrificed 1 [Minor] Path Interaction. Windfall bonus activated.

Reward: 5 casts of a temporary Skill—

ERROR

Conflict with Current System Architecture. Feature: [Skill Integration] incompatible with Version 2.0.9.

Re-evaluating…

Reward: 5 casts of a temporary Affix—Soul Sight—assigned under Sacrifice Aspect ]

[ WARNING: Incompatible Aspect and Affix

Due to the incompatibility of the temporary Affix with the Aspect it has been categorized under, caster will suffer physiological penalties when using the incompatible Affix.

Casts remaining: 5 ]

[ Rank Up!

Your Sacrifice Aspect has risen by one Rank.

Sacrifice: Silver I ]

[ Affix Unlocked!

You have acquired a new Affix for your Sacrifice Aspect.

Affix: Experientiality ]

“Are you alright, Cultist Moreland?”

Glonek’s voice warped in my ear. Everything materialized back in my field of view so quickly, it was like that whole vision had been nothing more than a temporary illusion. I supposed it kind of had been, in a way.

I would have tried to gauge how everyone was looking at me, and then tried to smooth everything over. Except, my vision was flooded with way too many blue screens at once.

What the hell had that reward been? Not one but two new Affixes? Experientiality… That was such a mouthful. One of them wasn’t even supposed to be an Affix.

Sacrifice had tried to give me a Skill, but it hadn’t worked. All because the Weave didn’t support it. Current System Architecture, it read. Wait, did that mean that this was a different version of all the magic shenanigans and quantified attributes and all that? Was the Weave… not what had originally been used on this world?

My mind kind of spun with the possibilities. I hadn’t ever paused to think about the terminology of things or how they fit in. Why were things called Affixes and Aspects and Augmentations and all that? Why not just plain or Skills and Stat Points?

Well, now I had a certain hint of an answer. It was because the Weave purposefully divested itself from such a structure.

From such an architecture, as the Weave itself put it.

It all sounded so artificial. And extremely intelligent. I wracked my head about the lore I had heard about the world, cursing my brain for not appreciating abstract pieces of historical information. Although, even calling it abstract was an excuse. I had learned the context too.

The Rupture. That was what Revayne had mentioned. All the Ascendant-rank individuals gathering together to create the Weave.

Also, what in the world was Soul Sight? An Affix, obviously, but what could it do? The Weave said it didn’t fit under Sacrifice, so why—

“Ross?” Aurier asked.

I hauled my mind back to the present as the blue screens disappeared. Later. I could think about it all later.

“I’m alright,” I said. No point in pretending I hadn’t just blanked out. “Sorry, just spaced out for a moment.” I fixed my expression and looked squarely at Glonek, who was looking at me with avid interest now. “Anyway, where we? Finishing up the induction, right?”

The vampire nodded slowly. The other cultists, Aurier included, shot me looks of concern, but none of them protested. I wondered if any of them thought that the Scarseeker before us had done something to me.

“I finished the chant,” Glonek said. “Unless you’d like me to repeat it.”

Considering none of the others reacted, clearly, he wasn’t lying.

“I heard,” I said. Now that was a lie. “But we’re not actually done, sorry. Just one last thing—new cultists make an Oath to the cult.” I smiled at him challengingly. “You understand the necessity, right?”