He spent the following cycles learning the deeper interior's texture.
Not by mapping it systematically, the Middle Domain was too vast for systematic mapping and the deeper interior was vast within that vastness. By moving through it with the Observer running at its established-depth calibration and letting the environment's character accumulate into understanding the way the standard Middle Domain's character had accumulated over the early acclimation weeks.
The deeper interior was denser than the high-density region in the specific way the gradient's approach had communicated: not a step change but a continuous deepening, the Law-matter here conducting the organizing principles of the formations and entities within it at a richness that made the high-density region feel like the approach to this territory rather than a destination in itself.
He was not comfortable here yet.
