After Anna left, the taut string in the room seemed to snap. The immense fatigue following intense concentration, coupled with the dull ache of spiritual overextension, washed over Erika like a tide. Leaning against the cold wall, he had intended to keep puzzling over the stolen fragments of conversation, but his eyelids were too heavy to lift. His consciousness struggled for a few moments in the vortex of cold terms—'specimen mutation', 'energy feedback', 'three cycles'—before being irresistibly pulled into a dreamless darkness.
This time, it wasn't emptiness, but a deep, restorative sleep.
He didn't know how much time had passed when another faint sound came from outside the door, even more cautious than Anna's last visit. Erika jolted awake, his heart seizing. His hand instinctively groped beside him—finding nothing, he had no weapon.
The door cracked open. Anna's small head peeked in, clutching a book wrapped in worn, dark blue cloth, its corners frayed. Seeing Erika sitting up, she visibly relaxed, slipped inside like a nimble fish, and quickly closed the door.
"You're awake!" she whispered, a hint of triumph in her voice after completing her task. She carefully placed the book on the bed. "I found it! This is it, An Analysis of Spiritual Resonance. I snuck it out when the overseeing Sister wasn't looking... We have to be quick, I need to return it before evening prayers."
Erika pressed his fingers to his still-throbbing temples, his gaze falling on the dark blue bundle. A vessel of knowledge felt both precious and dangerous now.
"Thank you, Anna," he said sincerely, then gestured to his head. "Feeling better. Just still a bit... empty."
Anna nodded vigorously in understanding. She carefully unwrapped the bundle, revealing the tome with its yellowed pages, smelling faintly of mildew and old ink. The text was in a slightly ornate common script, interspersed with abstract symbols and diagrams.
"Look here," Anna, having clearly browsed it on her way back, expertly flipped to a middle page pointing to an illustration of concentric ripples. "The book says our spirit is like calm water. Every thought creates 'ripples'. 'Mind-voice' is about actively controlling those ripples, making them travel only in a specific 'direction'."
Erika leaned in closely. Next to the diagram were dense annotations explaining the effects corresponding to different mental 'frequencies', and how to adjust one's own mental 'amplitude' and 'wavelength' through meditation.
"It says the purer the spirit, the sharper the focus, the more 'stable' the ripples created, the less likely they are to be interference by other ripples, and the more accurately they can reach the target 'water'," Anna continued, her expression focused, like a tiny scholar. "But if your own spirit is chaotic, or there are many powerful 'ripple sources' nearby, it's easy to... get cross-talk."
Erika listened quietly, his mind racing, cross-referencing Anna's explanations with his own experience. Frequency, amplitude, wavelength, interference... These words provided a framework of near-'physical laws' for understanding that mysterious mental force. It fit his way of thinking far better than Wolfgang's dogma-filled metaphors.
"So," Erika mused, his finger unconsciously tracing the ripple pattern on the page, "to avoid interference, or... to 'listen' better to a specific frequency, you first need to make your own 'water' as calm as possible, and then... adjust yourself to 'match' the amplitude and wavelength of that frequency?"
"Match?" Anna blinked, intrigued by the term. She looked at the book, thought for a moment, then nodded firmly. "Mhm! The book doesn't use 'match' exactly, but it says the receiver finds it easier to catch clear 'messages' if they are in a 'resonant' state. Resonance... that must be what you mean by 'match', right Erika?"
Resonance. Match.
The words were like keys, unlocking a new door in his mind. His earlier passive reception of the black-clad Clerics' conversation might have happened precisely because, in his state of extreme fatigue and mental emptiness, he had inadvertently allowed his mental frequency to achieve a brief 'resonance' with that high-intensity, icy channel!
It wasn't brute mental intrusion, but more like... precise tuning.
The realization made his heart race. If he could actively master this 'tuning' technique, even at its most basic level, did it mean he could acquire an extremely dangerous, yet potentially powerful, eavesdropping tool within this information prison?
He looked at the ancient text, then at the utterly trusting, guileless Anna before him. A complex emotion welled up—gratitude, and a thread of indescribable guilt. He was using her kindness and knowledge to plot something that could drag them both into an abyss.
"Anna," he said softly, his voice slightly hoarse, "This book... could you tell me more about how to practice 'resonance'? And how do you know if you're in a 'resonant' state?"
Anna, completely unsuspecting, believing Erika was genuinely curious, eagerly turned to another page. Pointing to meditation diagrams and breathing rhythm instructions, she began explaining earnestly.
Erika listened intently, carving every detail into his mind. Outside, the Sanctum's light continued its indifferent shine, but within this small, isolated cell, an initiation into frequencies, silence, and secret storms was quietly underway.
As Anna explained, Erika found the abstract concepts of 'frequency' and 'amplitude' becoming clearer in his perception. He could even vaguely connect them to the faint energy flow within him and the warmth of the Mark on his hand. A bold idea sprouted again—if 'Mind-voice' relied purely on mental strength, wouldn't someone like him, with recently depleted spirit and inherent 'special' qualities, never use it effectively?
He decided on an extremely minute, cautious experiment. While Anna explained how to stabilize the mental 'water' through breathing, he didn't follow completely. Instead, he diverted a sliver of his will, carefully guiding the faint, almost negligible energy flow within him—the one not yet fully recovered—and attempted to... attach it to the 'mental ripples' Anna described.
At first, nothing changed.
But when he finely tuned that faint thread of Auric energy to nearly synchronize with the frequency required for 'stable transmission' as Anna described—
Hum...
A strange sensation arose! His originally weak, easily dispersed mental 'ripple' felt as if injected with an incredibly fine yet resilient 'skeleton', becoming stable and condensed! What shocked him more was that in that instant, he could vaguely sense the subtle fluctuations of Anna's mental 'water', even 'hear' the focused intensity of her teaching thoughts. It was no longer one-way listening, but a... fuzzy, two-way perception!
The range of this perception also seemed to exceed Anna's stated limits. He felt his extended 'antennae' could reach further, as if the energy skeleton was amplifying and projecting his mental signal!
However, this wondrous feeling lasted less than a heartbeat.
"Guh!" A wave of intense vertigo and the familiar sting between his brows struck him! The Mark on his left hand flared with a brief, sharp burn! The thread of energy attached to the mental ripple instantly dissipated, and the faint connection he'd just established snapped.
"Erika? What's wrong?" Anna stopped her explanation immediately, worriedly watching his suddenly pale face.
"Nothing... it's nothing," Erika forced down the churning discomfort in his chest and the stabbing pain in his head, managing a weak smile. "Just a bit... tired. Anna, I think I understand the principles now. Thank you so much. The book... you should take it back now. It wouldn't be good if it's discovered."
He couldn't continue. The brief attempt, though short-lived, had revealed a terrifying and alluring possibility: energy could bypass the natural limits of mental strength, forcibly expanding the boundaries of 'Mind-voice'.
But it was undoubtedly walking a tightrope. Each attempt could trigger a more violent backlash, or even... trip alarms in the Creed's monitoring network.
Seeing he truly looked unwell, Anna, though a bit disappointed, nodded obediently and carefully re-wrapped the book. "Then rest well. I'll check on you later."
Hugging the book, she slipped away as silently as she came.
Alone in the room, Erika pressed a hand to his still-aching forehead, but his eyes shone with an unprecedented light.
Energy-assisted... Two-way communication...
This was no longer simple eavesdropping. It meant... he might be able to actively do more.
But at what cost? Where would this power, seized by crossing boundaries, ultimately lead him?