"What interests me is your path. Your record. Your Intent, and how you carry it. You're a Bounded Lifeform who reached THE Fifth Scale alone, with no framework handed to you and no one to teach you. So talk to me. Tell me about your progression. From THE Fourth Scale to THE Fifth. How you crossed it."
...!
It was information he was after, more than anything. Data. He could understand THE Mesozoic Scale far better from a being who had walked into it the hard way than from any record the Swords might hand him, and the wider his breadth of knowledge, the more freely he could choose, for himself, exactly how he wanted his own progression to unfold. He collected the knowing the way THE Mirror That Keeps collected everything, quietly, against future use.
