Sunny eyed a compass for a few moments. He tossed it to the side of his bed. A moment later, another Memory was summoned into his hands, a ring. He scanned it as well, before discarding it as well.
For the better part of an hour, this process repeated. But Sunny wasn't just looking at Memories — no, he was looking beneath them. At the underlying structure of what formed the magical artifacts. The Spellweave revealed itself to him in a web of light and stars; the former being strings of Soul Essence that dictated the powers of the Memory, while the latter represented the Soul Shards used as anchors to power the enchantments.
With each glance, a perfect recollection was recorded within his mind. At first, Sunny was a bit concerned that he was going to start forgetting the intricate patterns needed for his unique Sorcery, but despite the odd ineffectiveness of [The War] recently, the complex and metaphysical Spellweaves were not lost to him. He wondered if that was an effect of Weaver's Lineage.
So, even though his once-perfect memory was slipping down a downwards spiral that he had no explanation for, he didn't seem to be losing the skill he had been practicing since the Second Nightmare.
...He really needed to get that checked.
By the time he was finished, Sunny's room was a mess. Swords, spears, armors, garments, tools and trinkets of all kinds littered his surroundings. He sent a sweeping glance at the disastrous clutter of his own creation.
All trash, barely suitable for an Awakened. Maybe a Sleeper could appreciate them.
Or Sunny, for that matter. With an unnecessarily dramatic wave of the hand, each and every one of those Memories disappeared — their combined dismissal creating a storm of white sparks around him, casting deep shadows across his room.
The enchantments were mediocre. That reminded Sunny that those who wielded these Memories weren't [Fated], and so, did not receive express favoritism from the Spell. Moreover, he was technically the bastard son of its creator, Weaver, the Daemon of Fate.
So, it wasn't too much of a surprise that he received garbage. Besides, he expressly asked for unused, low quality Memories so that he could get them in bulk. That was because, unique to most, if not all other Awakened, Sunny had ways to make use of useless Memories. Besides simply selling them, that is.
For instance, he could feed them to his Shadows to increase their Rank. That would destroy the Memory, however... but there was another use for them. He could study their Spellweave to further his own talents in the Daemonic Sorcery of Weaving.
And at present, the latter had been his priority. He walked over to his desk, picking up a sheet of paper he had prepared. He stared at it intently, wondering if he could pull it off.
By this point, he had consumed hundreds of Spellweaves, mostly contributed by Sunny's Brilliant Emporium's mysterious sponsor, SoundlessHeaven, and more recently, Fu Xuan. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it was the Xianzhou Luofu as a whole. He knew thousands of enchantments — some being as minor as gaining a resistance to stubbing your toe, to being able drain Essence. The latter, in particular, greatly interested him. But that would wait for a later date.
Before now, Sunny had only been able to copy enchantments, sometimes being able to make minor alterations to their mechanics. In fact, he had even been able to replicate enchantments from other forms of Sorcery. Back in the Second Nightmare, he managed to copy Noctis' voice projection Runecraft, converting it into an enchantment for the Extraordinary Rock. That same enchantment was then used to create SoundlessHeaven's trial Memory, which was meant for her mute friend.
As for creating an enchantment from scratch... he simply couldn't. Sunny didn't understand Weaving. He was the only one in existence, after all. He had no teacher besides the Nightmare Spell, and the grand mechanism woven into the Tapestry of Fate was not a helpful tutor. He had to stumble on his own, figuring out why each pattern did what it did.
Even now, he couldn't say he understood it. It was like trying to learn a language by figuring out which word meant what, without comprehending why words were structured that way in the first place.
And it was for that reason Sunny found himself facing a dilemma. He had a plan, but would it really work?
'...Screw me, I guess.'
He was going to have to try.
The Covetous Coffer was summoned beside him, spewing out three Transcendent Soul Shards — courtesy of SoundlessHeaven, which only made Sunny realize that this woman was rich. There were two possibilities regarding her background; she was either an extremely powerful Saint, or someone who was connected to a deeply powerful Saint.
After all, she even sent him a Supreme Soul Shard like it was nothing.
He'd be lying if he said he wasn't very curious of SoundlessHeaven's identity. But that was for later.
The piece of paper lying before him was not ordinary. Rather, it was crafted from the fibers of a tree said to have once been alive. Probably a Nightmare Creature in disguise, or something along those lines.
He couldn't use a normal sheet of paper. Otherwise, the Transcendent Essence would completely tear it to shreds, destroying the Memory. Acquiring something a little more mystical in nature was a must, as he needed this Memory to be of the Transcendent Rank to work.
Five hands of shadow coalesced at his sides, each of them bearing seven fingers. Weaver's Needle appeared in his original right hand as the rest got to work in perfect Harmony, picking up Soul Shards and creating strings of Shadow Essence. In practiced swiftness, he easily weaved the core properties of all Memories; the power to be dismissed and resummoned, being able to restore itself within his soul, having a name, a description, etc...
All of that was done in only a few minutes. Now came the hard part.
The first enchantment required at least two Soul Shards to function, considering how much strength it had. That was what Sunny believed, at least, but he'd soon find out.
An enchantment was like a sentence, so creating one was like forming a sentence. Sunny knew the words, and he knew what they meant. Putting them together seemed easy, but languages had their own rules and quirks. Sometimes a suffix or an apostrophe was needed, or there were differentiations between time-based tenses.
He was trying to create a sentence he has never heard or read, using only his vocabulary as a guide. A minor mispronunciation could potentially change the whole meaning of the sentence, being the difference between a love confession and a very offensive stream of slurs.
Moreover, it was a complex sentence. Not just a few words.
As Sunny struggled to put the first enchantment together, another stream of his consciousness was focused on putting the other enchantment together. They were both connected, so he tried to create them at the same time.
Would he succeed? Or would he fail?
...Actually, who cared? SoundlessHeaven was practically his sugar mommy now, so he'd just try again and again until he succeeded.