Vincent shook his head. In any case, the Fool was no true deity — and finding Roselle down the line would require his help one way or another. Joining the Tarot Club wasn't really betraying Bernadette.
He closed his eyes, stilled his mind, and carefully turned his attention inward.
Some disappointment: the faint, deep-seated weakness was back — the absence in his soul had not been healed by a single visit to the Sefirot.
Of course it hadn't. Nothing was ever that straightforward.
But at least now there was a direction.
Vincent looked down at the compass again. The new crack aside, it was intact — not shattered, unlike the objects in the original story that burned themselves out making contact with the Sefirot. He found himself thinking again about the faded room. What was that place, exactly? Why had he gone there before ending up at the Sefirot? Could it be that connecting to the Sefirot was incidental — and the faded room, with its Broker ability, was the compass's true purpose all along?
And if he wanted to enter it again — would he need the compass?
The thought had barely finished forming when Vincent was already back in the faded room, standing exactly where he'd left. The ancient scales hung in the air, perfectly still.
One thought and I can enter at will. That's considerably simpler than Klein Moretti's path to the Sefirot…
Wait.
Vincent went very still.
Could the faded room be another version of the "above the grey fog" — a different Sefirot-equivalent? He had a vague memory that several such existences were scattered across this world.
The thought sent a chill of excitement and unease through him at once. If the faded room really is another "above the grey fog" — that's an extraordinary advantage. But why would it be bound to me specifically?
Vincent had his Sefirot because he was a contingency set in motion by its previous master. So who had set this in motion for him? Was he, too, someone else's contingency? Was there a Sequence pathway behind all of this?
He frowned and searched his memory for a long while. Nothing came to him — either the original story hadn't mentioned it, or he simply hadn't read that far.
"Well. What's meant for me won't miss me. And what isn't — no amount of worrying will help." He gave a self-deprecating smile. Maybe he was overthinking it entirely.
The next moment — a sharp pain drove straight into his mind, a powerful sensation of falling wrapped around him, and he was pulled back to reality.
He pressed a hand to his throbbing temple. A piercing, scraping sound rang in his ears — the shriek of countless fingernails dragging across a blackboard. His stomach churned. His vision blurred at the edges.
The signs of spirituality depletion.
But where did I get spirituality from?
The answer came in the form of that same wordless, arcane understanding: a small, faint trace of spirituality had genuinely formed in this body — his own.
Vincent immediately quieted his mind and focused. He felt the thin spirituality slowly replenishing, and guided it — carefully, steadily — extending it outward, inch by inch, letting it spread and flow through him, gathering it, directing it, feeling it settle into circulation.
Then a thought struck him:
The reason I couldn't use Bernadette's abilities before might simply have been the absence of spirituality. Now that I have my own — even a trace — could I access the Hermit's abilities?
In an instant, a flood of information rushed into his mind — chaotic, overlapping, formless. His head screamed with the pressure.
The world before his eyes fractured. Everything split into layered planes stacked on top of one another: the bed, the wardrobe, the bathroom, the toilet — each like a half-transparent canvas superimposed over the others, all at once.
The pain lasted several minutes before it gradually eased. Only then did Vincent have the presence of mind to register what had actually poured into him: knowledge — ritual magic, extraordinary languages, occult theory — and beyond that, abilities:
Bernadette's Hermit pathway had unlocked.
From Sequence 9's Hermit's Eye, to Sequence 8's combat techniques, Sequence 7's Warlock abilities, Sequence 6's Scroll Forger, Sequence 5's Astrologer, Sequence 4's Mystery Pryer, all the way to Sequence 3's Prophetic ability.
Within the span of a few minutes, he had taken in dozens of distinct extraordinary abilities — jumping in an instant from an ordinary person to a being that was half human, half divine.
But before Vincent could even feel pleased about it, he ran into a hard truth: his current spirituality could not support the use of most of these abilities. Some he simply couldn't activate at all. Others would produce only a pale shadow of their intended effect. A handful, if forced, might push him into spirituality depletion and loss of control.
"This… would almost have been better if it hadn't unlocked at all."
It's like a stunningly beautiful woman standing right in front of you, completely unguarded — but the moment you move, someone grabs your arm and says: look, don't touch.
I'll unlock your abilities, but that doesn't mean you get to use them. Is that it?
Vincent looked around at the overlapping phantom layers of the room: this had to be the Hermit's Eye at work. Once active, it allowed the user to observe the astral body, etheric body, and mental body of any target, and examine the fine details of the astral body.
The problem was that for most Hermits, the Eye couldn't be switched off once opened. It had a habit of showing things that were better left unseen, which had a tendency to invite danger and trouble.
Which was precisely why so many extraordinary persons on the Hermit pathway wore vision-blocking glasses at all times.
This is going to be mildly inconvenient.
Knock knock knock.
The door.
Vincent quickly composed his expression. "Come in."
Cattleya stood in the doorway. She pressed her right hand to her chest and gave a small bow.
"Good morning, Your Majesty. I've come to take my leave."
Harry Potter's world.
After that first night of shelter, Harry came by every day — sometimes staying for an entire afternoon, sometimes leaving in less than half an hour. Before receiving his Hogwarts letter, this would never have been allowed.
But since becoming a "wizard-in-waiting," Harry had largely been treated as invisible by Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, as long as he wasn't underfoot. In fact, the less they saw of him, the happier they seemed.
Most of the time Harry and Bernadette spent together was devoted to "teaching" English, with the occasional conversation woven in for practice. Who was that chubby boy who kept bothering you?Who were those two shouting at each other in the street?Where are your parents — why aren't you living with them?
And then sometimes: What do you like?What do you want to do when you grow up?
It was the first time in Harry's life that anyone had sat and listened to him — really listened — with patience. So he held nothing back, telling Bernadette everything he knew about himself and his life.
Bernadette listened to all of it in silence. Whether the things Harry shared were happy or painful, angering or sad, she offered no judgement and no advice.
Partly because they had only known each other a few days — not yet close enough for that. And partly because this world still felt distant to her, something she was observing from the outside.
But Harry found himself wanting to be here more and more. Here, he wasn't the nuisance everyone wished would disappear. Dudley didn't steal his food. He wasn't going to bed hungry every other night. And more than anything — he felt like he was being treated as a person.
The real exchanges between him and Mr. Vincent over these few days hadn't been many. But Harry, who had always been quietly attuned to people's feelings, could sense the wizard's goodwill toward him.
It was something he had almost never felt in eleven years.
To be continued…