I worked on stuff for a couple hours while I tried to figure out how to approach Mira. For her part, she sat around on one of my work tables and idly watched me busy myself running from one machine to the next.

My autominer robots I was designing were mostly complete. My prototype was slowly coming along. It started with six legs supporting an upper body about the size of a cat. Honestly, it looked like a miniature version of the spider-tank that chased me around.

It even had the gun, though in this case it was a laser experimentally converted to be more mining focused. The energy drain for just the processing units, servos to actually move the bot around, and especially the laser gun was frankly too immense for a bot of its small size. I had yet to figure out how I could get around that without hardwiring the thing into the electrical grid.

At most they could move for a couple minutes. It'd be terribly time consuming for the little bots to carve out a new workshop space even if I had several of them working simultaneously. The energy efficiency and battery were something I'd solve in time.

For now, manually recharging them every once in a while with my Kinetic ability wouldn't be too bad. Or I could set up an automatic charging station similar to the ones I found in the theatre house of New Tress City. That'd probably work just fine too.

"Cover." I called halfheartedly to Mira and flicked down a welding hood. With practiced ease, a bead weaved the two pieces of metal together. I flicked up the hood and checked it for faults.

"So…" Mira started from the other side of the workshop.

"So…" I swiveled around in my chair, turning to look at her. I carefully pushed myself away from the still burning metal.

"I get the feeling you've been wanting to say something… for a while now, actually." Mira pulled up one of her legs to lean on while her other dangled from the table. Was it a self-soothing motion? That's what her Cues read as, but why so nervous?

"Uh- Uncle is coming in tomorrow…"

"Yeah- yeah, he is." My mikata hunched in on herself and pulled her beanie lower. "You think he'll…"

She trailed off, leaving me to only guess at what the second part of that statement would've been. "It'll be fine, Mira. He's worried sick, you know."

"I know." She buried her head into the crook of her elbow, barely peeking out over the top of it. "I-is it bad I don't want him to see me?"

I stared at her, lost in thought. I had half a mind to say yes. I would give anything to be able to see my parents one more time. I could see where she was coming from though. I brushed a hand against the stray lock of silver and gently rubbed at my eye.

"It'll be fine." I didn't really know what else to say to comfort her, so I just rolled over and patted her on the knee.

"Right." She closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall of my temporary workshop.

"Listen, Mira…" I paused for a moment, searching for the right words. "I- I have this thing."

"Is it contagious?"

"What- no, no, nothing like that. At least, not while I'm still alive." The interface was technically contagious if I were to die? "It's- it's- um…"

"No pressure." Mira chuckled softly and ruffled my hair. Distracted as I was, I dodged it way too late.

I clutched at my hair and tried to fix it up while glaring up through the locks at her. "What's up with doing that recently?"

"Sorry. It's just so soft." She reached out a hand once more, though I rolled away before she could get anywhere close. "What's your hair care routine?"

"Magic."

My mikata pouted slightly and gave a half-hearted kick in my direction. "Fine, don't tell me.

"No- it's…" It was literally magic. The interface did some kind of voodoo, and then that cloak that turned me into a sprite messed with my hair yet again. So annoying. "Look- you know how I've gotten more skilled at everything?"

Mira raised a brow and looked around the workshop. Behind me, two printers were still blitzing away parts for the micro-foundry I was building for Nael. "Yeah?"

"It's- it's not all natural." Okay- good start. Now just give an actual explanation, and I'm there. "You- uh- you know those games you used to play? The ones where you level up and build a character."

Her head tilted to the side in confusion. "The RPGs? What's that got to do with this?"

"Well, it's a bit like that…"

I described the interface, its functions, and everything I knew about it up to this point. There was a lot to go over, and simultaneously not all that much. I still didn't know much about the interface. Next time I went to Fox's place, I'd have to ask more. If she'd even tell me. They were cagey about it so far.

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Mira asked a ton of questions, of course. I even went through and showed off most of my abilities to her. Most. I kept a few close to my chest. The whole Fox's Fluffy Cloak and sprite thing was, of course, kept private. For now, anyway. I wasn't sure how I felt about it yet. And I'd rather not be turned into her private stuffed animal.

Needless to say, she had a lot to think about. Nearing the end of our conversation, she became more and more quiet. Eventually, we were just sitting there listening to the sounds of my printers whirl in the background.

"U-umm… you- you okay?" I nervously asked her. There was a deep, deep worry in my heart that it wouldn't be taken well.

"Y-yeah." Mira flashed a cheerful smile. It looked forced, but that wasn't anything new. Most of her smiles had been recently. "I'm happy for you, Shiro. Really. To have this kind of opportunity. Is there a reason you're telling me about it though? Something like this would be better kept close to your chest, right? And the Eidolons- they're just okay with you telling me about the- the interface?"

"They haven't told me to shut up yet." I stared at the interface. I half expected a bounty or message to pop-up when I first started talking about it, but so far there was nothing. "And- uh- the Perk process can take some time… it makes me extremely vulnerable."

"I'll protect you." She patted her chest. Fire burned in her eyes, and her entire attitude seemed to perk up. If before she was just a lost wanderer stumbling in the dark, now she looked like she had a goal to push her forward.

"Th-thanks." I rubbed my hands together and summoned the canteen to take a swig of water. "Uh- I'll try to pick a quick one tonight. I wouldn't want to miss tomorrow."

That was the real reason I wanted to tell her about it. More than anything, I didn't want her to freak out when I went comatose for up to two days. I had no idea how I looked when actually picking a Perk, but Mira freaking out wouldn't be a great idea. She'd probably take me to Nael, and then this would be blown way out of proportion.

"Can you show my your lighting thing again?" She leaned forward over her knee and stared at me.

Electricity churned to life throughout my body. It easily flowed, following my will. I even withdrew the electricity from my chrome's internal batteries, creating a large blob of the brilliantly glowing stuff. The air around us immedietly took on a faint burnt-ozone scent. The ball slowly shrunk as I I focused on it, turning into a vibrant dragon flying through the air. I wasn't amazing at control yet, so it only vaguely looked like one.

"So cool." She nodded her head to the half finished autominer laying on my work table. "You finished with that?"

"Almost." I didn't really have the drive to keep working on it. Not till I figured out my energy issue. Funny, I was an electric Kinetic and had issues with keeping something charged… if only they weren't designed to be autonomous, it wouldn't be a big deal.

That being said, I did roll back over to the printers and start queuing up the parts for another hover bike. They were already designed, so it was easy to just drag and drop them into the queue.

The contract hadn't been officially signed—I still needed to find a lawyer—but that was fine. It wouldn't hurt to have the parts on hand even if this fell through. I was planning on making one for Mira anyway. She couldn't always ride bitch. Assuming she was sticking around Aythryn City, anyway. She might just disappear into the distance with Uncle Ezra after tomorrow.

I wouldn't blame her one bit if she decided to do that. Sticking around the city with your deepest and most traumatic experiences was… it was rough. Even just a stray word or image could bring back a plague of awful memories flooding back in.

— — —

With Mira looking over me back at my apartment, I collapsed onto my bed and dredged up the interface. In mere moments I was back in the pavilion. I took a second to look around and appreciate just how similar this place was to Fox's Nine-Peaks.

Did she design it? Were all the interface spaces back then designed by the eidolons? Which poor bastard designed that dank cave then? Who would even want to set up shop in something like that?

I shook my head and approached today's shelf: First-Aid. I wanted one thing in particular from this—some kind of magical healing ability. Knowledge and experience could be nice, but I wanted a hard magic to patch wounds. If there wasn't anything like that, I'd take a look elsewhere.

I scrounged through the scrolls, digging through mountains of medical jargon I could only guess at. There were a lot of ones I just didn't even understand thanks to the way their descriptions were written.

Bunch of interesting ones in First-Aid, just like the last time I looked through it. A few were even just better versions of their level four ones. Perfect Donor, for instance, looked like it would make me a universal donor and put boosted enzymes in my blood to promote quick healing.

It was…. It was a scary Perk, to be honest. I had nightmares about people slurping Shiro Slurpies for weeks after I found out about how effective Quick Healing was. With Perfect Donor, Shiro Slurpies would be a hundred percent on the menu.

Unfortunately, there weren't any magical healing abilities like I wanted. Perfect Donor was the closest thing to it. For the most part, First-Aid was full of knowledge type Perks. Almost exclusively, in fact. I got the feeling there wasn't an eidolon focused on healing.

After digging around for a bit I gave up and turned to Intimidation's Perk shelf instead. I needed an ability or mutation type, not a knowledge one.

「Rumours' Chain」

「Nightmare」

「Echoing Menace」

「Silent Terror」

「Lingering Intimidation」

「Broken Voice」

「Hollow Stare」

Of the lot, Rumours' Chain and Silent Terror caught my eye. Both were interesting, though they had two completely different approaches. Rumour's Chain was, obviously, built around Rumours. More accurately, it seemed built around my reputation. Not quite sure how that would work?

Silent Terror, on the other hand, was similar to what I did to that goon back at the Savant Lab. The one that saw me, and then was gaslit by his coworkers into believing I wasn't real. Basically, as long as I remained silent, it'd have a psychological effect on whoever spotted me. It'd decrease the likelihood they raised the alarm since they'd think I was just a hallucination.

After a couple moments, I went with Silent Terror. It just seemed more useful of the lot. It played into what I was already good at. I had a pretty diverse 'build' now anyway, so it wouldn't hurt to start doubling down on what I was good at once more.

I tossed the scroll onto the easel. It unrolled, revealing a creeping shadow that looked as though it'd lunge out of the painting at any moment. It's glowing red eyes peered through the dark like a demon, staring at me-

I took a step back and the entire room broke apart into pieces. The creature from the painting stood there, lurking. It lunged toward me, startling me back into my apartment. I lay there in bed, grasping at my pounding heart for several long moments.

On the other side of the room, Mira was passed out on the couch with her hand stuffed into a bag of chips. I let out a shaken breath and settled back into bed after checking the clock. It took me a long, long time to fall asleep even with the help of Lethargic Pressence.

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