'Without emotions or a will, you say...' William realized that this might be a bit tricky for him to accomplish then.
"Then what about those who have lost their humanity? Such as the divine? How do they use Ingenuity?" William asked loftily.
Linen paused for a moment. "We cannot say for sure, as humanity has yet to produce a being of that caliber to our knowledge; however, it can be hypothesized that to become a being as great as that, your will must be just as immense, so it's plausible that they can utilize the aspects of Ingenuity."
William nodded in understanding. He then further inquired.
"So, what are the main aspects of Ingenuity then? What do the different colors achieve?"
Linen pointed towards the scroll of paper, which had strange runic letters near each colour. William used his status as a Reader of Lore to decipher its contents.
Red representing offense, Blue defense, Yellow support, Green healing, Purple utility, Orange destabilization.
On a more unique note, White and Black symbolize aspects of Creation and Destruction.
He then explained. "As the effects of coloured Ingenuity vary upon the user, I can't really say for sure what the upper limit of its power is, of course, Ingenuity is only as powerful as its user; if you're weak, it's pointless. Now, although I can't tell you how your Ingenuity will interact with your core, I can demonstrate my own to help you get a better grasp of what I'm explaining here. Oh, try your best to sense it."
He began to produce illusory strings of Ingenuity, colorless as it usually is. William activated his ability to view the particles of Ingenuity directly, gazing upon his superior's skills.
The threads of Ingenuity suddenly turned a blazing red, and he quickly threw them at a nearby suit of armor he had prepared in advance. The armor glowed as if mystically enhanced in some way before shattering and being diced apart by the threads, though it did seem to take a bit of effort from Linen's side.
Pointing at the remains of the once shiny suit of armor, he said, "That right there was a vestige of someone who once had a defense-based core ability. Now, of course, I am a much higher rank than they were, and vestiges don't retain their user's original strength, so you can see where Ingenuity has its limits when in combat. However, it could easily serve as a strong weapon nonetheless." He said a bit self-deprecatingly.
While William was nodding in acknowledgement, Linen pointed to his coat and began excitedly going on a tangent.
By the way, have you figured out that vestiges made from Verifiers are subjected to erasure just as we are? I suppose it makes sense given where most vestige's base materials come from. It is a truly curious phenomenon, erasure that is." He joyfully ranted about his passion.
William thought for a little while. This was some shocking news! That his vestiges would inevitably run out some day.
"Then, does the way of rejecting erasure still apply to the vestiges?"
Linen nodded. "It does, however, the process is a lot trickier and ends up being less effective and unsustainable in most cases. So you should make sure of the ones you've got while you still have them, everything has a shelflife after all." Linen sighed sadly.
"Is there anything else about Vestiges I should know? Just so I don't have to keep coming back and bothering you about it." William asked rather tiredly, after all, there are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen. This was one of those weeks for William, unfortunately.
Linen rubbed his chin for a few seconds. "Hmm, well theres so many intricacies to Vestige creation that I doubt I could fit them into the short time frame we have here, but I do have a word of advice to give to you. The wills of those who perish only truly die when they are forgotten. Beware."
William nodded in understanding before getting up from his seat.
"Well, Mr. Linen, I am going to be forming an attack on the Lord of Shadows soon. I would be very thankful if you could supply us with some useful items. I know you don't like to get involved with things like this, but please, I really need this." William sincerely asked Linen whilst bowing to him.
Linen, seeing this, was rather taken aback. He stayed silent for a few seconds. "I'll think about it, now shoo, I have things to prepare."
William followed Linen's instructions and departed from the earthy elevator.
'Huh, I wonder how this elevator works?'
------------------------------------------------------------
After swiftly returning to the watchtower, a groggy Fei Kangzhen and Li Jiaojie greeted him with concerned expressions.
Li Jiaojie asked as soon as he caught a glimpse of William. "Boss, what the hell happened here...We can hardly remember anything..." He rubbed him temples in annoyance.
Fei Kangzhen didn't look any better. "I t-think we got into s-some kind of fight. Ugh...my memory..."
'Hmm, something tampered with their minds? A subordinate of the Shadow man?' William thought. 'Or a third party.'
"I forgot to ask, how's the situation with the King? Is he still fine?"
Fei Kangzhen shrugged. "He wasn't there when we woke up, I can only presume hes been kidnapped with the rest of the people here."
William then peeked over inside of the watchtower, there were a solid amount of men remaining.
"Those people...I wonder what their motive is, why not just kill everyone on the spot?"
"Maybe they have another use for them, though, boss shouldn't we get ready to raid their base, or atleast get our people back?" Li Jiaojie asked.
"It'll come shortly, so don't you two worry a thing. Especially you Fei Kangzhen."
William jokingly replied.
He then headed inside of the watchtower, he walked around and helped the unconscious people up, they were all seemingly disgruntled in some way or another.
The interior of the building, which he had neglected to notice earlier, showed obvious times of wear and tear, as if a fierce battle had occured here, with several signs of a struggle present.
As he was inspecting the building from within, a shaky hand grasped William's left arm tightly, squeezing it so hard it might as well have been an attempt to cut off his circulation.
Fearing the worst, William turned around swiftly with his guard up.
"..."
Only to see an awful looking Sang Pianyi looking straight at him with blood-shot eyes, and dried tears on his face. He had deep eyebags, and he wouldn't stop shaking, as if he had witnessed something deeply traumatic.
Saliva dropped out of his mouth drip by drip, and the bloody gash on the right side of his face followed suit. Covering the ground a pale crimson-red liquid, something unnatural, just like the man he was speaking to.
Seeing this, William calmly placed his right hand on Sang Pianyi's right shoulder. "My colleague, it's going to be alright. Do not lose hope, for hope is all we can rely on as of now." Attempting to console him, however, he did not wish to be consoled.
The disheveled man spoke through gritted teeth and tears. A flame of determination emanating from his entire body, one stronger than William had felt in a long, long time.
"Why...why couldn't you save them! You're supposed to be our leader! Yet you neglected your responsibilities as one, to be the guardian that protects us, the one who preserves the solace that the old world prevented, and the new world erased. You aren't fit to lead us, Truth-Seeker of Deceit."
He then pushed William to the ground with a murderous gaze and departed the premises, with a fierce and fiery longing in his eyes. Taking several of the men with him to join him in his mission. Before he departed for good, he left a message for William.
"If you won't take action to be the leader people need, someone else will. You've lost your chance to be the hero of this story. I will save them, save her."
William fell to the ground with a resounding thud, the sound of him falling was all he could hear, yet he did nothing to break the fall. He wasn't sure why, but he just felt that it was the right thing to do in the moment.
He knew that he had a rock-solid alibi for his situation, that he was forcefully dragged into a dream world by an elite verifier, and was subject to horrible torture, not allowing him to save his people.
However, at the same time, he knew he had spent valuable time in that world, frolicking around in a fantasy land of make believe, that caused him to neglect his responsibilities in real life. Which ended up in him abandoning the ones he had worked oh so hard to keep close to him. If he had just been a little smarter, this could have been prevented, at least partially.
The fall didn't hurt very much, given that his skeleton was practically as durable as steel. But a different type of pain entered his mind. The pain of letting the ones he cared about down. To be a disappointment to them. Those words scarred him deep within, far worse than any type of physical torture could ever do to him.
Even causing his facade of a mask to break momentarily.
[Attribute: Monster wavers uncontrollably.]
Zhang Jiewei felt his face, it was cold and unfamiliar, yet warm and similar. A droplet of water fell from that very paradox of a face.
[Progress: 13.14%]
Pain is an ornately human thing to feel, is it not?
At that moment, a loud noise came from outside. This time, William sprung up immediately, not wanting to make the same mistake of complacency again.
As he exited the watchtower, he wiped the singular tear off of his face.
"Hey Boss, why did Sang Pianyi..... The two men at the front asked him wearily. Their voices trailing off as they saw William looking a bit different from usual, he seemed more.....determined?
"Don't worry about him, for now atleast. I respect his motivation and determination. Let him be." William replied succinctly.
He then gestured for the two to follow him and headed out to the main gate, where he heard the loud noise.
They walked out of the gate, only to see a large thread-woven crate in front, as well as a similar looking one far in the distance, that looked to have been open already.
'Mr. Linen...I really owe you one.' William thought internally.
He open up the crate from the top, gazing upon its contents.
At the very top, was a nicely written silk letter, which William picked up and opened.
-To William.
I hope you understand, that doing this is going to get me an earful from the higher ups. So don't waste my hard work and go dying on me. It's bad for branding.
I've equipped you with a few things. First, a few defensive coats for your allies, they are imbued by Blue Ingenuity of yours truly, which, if you paid attention to my class today, will know that it will help keep them safe. Other than that, I have a few more vestiges forged this way. Those being, a few swords that also serve as whips of sorts, forged through Red Ingenuity. Though notably I am not as adept at red as I am at blue. Theres also the couple of syringes filled with threads I made with green Ingenuity, once injected it will temporarily fill wounds with threads, preventing you from dying of blood loss at the very least, though it is far from a permanent solution. Then, theres a few pendants I made with purple, they effectively are connected to each other, and will allow you to sense where the other holders of the pendents are at all times, which can be handy. Lastly, I made earrings out of orange that allow your body to move like threads, fast, elusive, and smooth. I made enough so that everyone can get at least one coat, and one other item. So distribute them wisely, William.
From Linen.