While Curiosity was busy bming herself for having loose lips, Chara was carefully digesting all of the new information she had just learned.

  I see… That would expin why perception and movement just kind of… work. I still don’t really get why, but at least I know how…

  For Chara, the cept of “imagining” seemed pretty straightforward. Aside from a slightly greater emphasis on visualization, it was no different from what she was already familiar with.

  In stark trast, she didn’t think the cept of “envisioning” could be any less ambiguous if it tried. As a spirit, she uood that there o be a way to differentiate between thinking and doing. However, even by Curiosity’s own admission, whether a spirit o give explicit aowledgement, or if a subscious acquiesce would be enough, could literally vary by a spirit’s level of fidence.

  From a biological standpoint, she could uand that this type of ambiguity was actually a form of flexibility, but right now, it was just making her more fused.

  Uuu… Envisioning is too fusing. What determines whether or not I io a an idea, how will I know when I’m giving aowledgment, and what will happen if I don’t…?

  Well… Ideally, the ao that st question should be “nothing.” However, what Curiosity said about subscious aowledgment makes blindly believing in this notion seem rather risky…

  For example, if I’m in a situation where I’m thinking about moving, but don’t really io move, will I have to make a scious disambiguation, or will my subscious i not to move be enough for me not to grant subscious aowledgment…?

  I should figure this out before trying to cross this corridor…

  Uo e up with any more answers, Chara could only move on to other matters.

  Ohing that did get cleared up was the culprit behind her inexplicable bouts of ay.

  The first time it happened, she disregarded it as nonsense and proceeded to expand her perception ast its natural limit. The sed time, it was right before she nearly used up all her mana. As it turned out, in both cases, it was ter discovered that she was unknowingly c death!

  Based on these experiences, Chara had cluded that her near panic attacks were the result of some kind of danger sense or intuitio, if Curiosity were to be believed, then her intuition might be much more than that.

  Ultimately, the ambiguousness of aowledgment and the potential possibilities afforded to her by her intuition were only of sedary importance. Iy, these instincts were nothing more than safeguards to keep her from falling into an early grave.

  If her intuition was correct, then what would truly define her capabilities would be the limits of her imagination.

  For me to develop as a spirit, the most important skills for me to develop are my imagination and visualization skills… deduced Chara. There was definitely more to it than just that, but at the very least, she didn’t think she was far from the truth.

  The little spirit’s extreme rippling eased, and her swirling speed accelerated into a fident swish. She kly what she o do .

  With her newfound motivation, she extended her awareness as far as she could, into the corridor. Sadly, it didn’t reach where the curiosity spirit was waiting for her. That made things slightly more plicated, it meant she would either have to find somewhere to stop, so she could pn out her following moves, or just wing the entire journey, all in one move.

  Chara decided to go for the safer of the two options, stopping halfway.

  Decided orategy, she moved her gaze towards the top of the cave. She figured that if she took advantage of the crystal’s ination to verge, she might be able to find somewhere to rest he ceiling.

  Unfortunately, Curiosity was already two steps ahead of her, and had purposefully led her to a pce with a low ceiling.

  Realizing her previous fidence might have been mispced, Chara suddenly felt a lot less fident. Fet that bizarre spacial movement teique, she hadn’t even mastered basic floating! So why was she being expected to navigate through this byrinthine corridor?

  After a bit of grumbling, she swallowed her dissatisfa. For better or for worse, she still wao know what y at the ter of this crystal cavern.

  After a quick search, she found a suitable pce to stop. It was a small opening where fe interseg pilrs were protruding out of the ground in four different dires. What made this spot ideal is that because those fe pilrs were taking up so much space, it left almost no room for any other crystalline structs to grow iween, leaving a small amount of breathing room, where she could take a rest.

  Unfortunately, squeezing her way into that area would be a bit of a challenge. Although there were no obstrus in the area between the four pilrs, there were many around it. Following the general trend of the crystal cavern, like many of the iant pilrs, these fer pilrs were also brang into many smaller and thinner pilrs.

  This made it so that if she wao infiltrate her way into the sanctuary protected by the fer pilrs, she would have to carefully avoid knog over all of the frail and delicate crystals surrounding them first.

  How troublesome… thought Chara.

  Using her experience from rag games, she started devising the most ideal rag line from her current location to the area iween the four pilrs. Except, rather than optimizing for speed or taking ers, she was just trying to leave as much space as reasonably possible between herself and any crystals.

  She did this, all the while giving herself frequent remihat she was only imagining, not envisioning.

  The hing to sider would be her shape.

  For the time being, Chara had zero pns to emute the curiosity spirit’s mystifying movement teique. As a former solid, even the mere notion of disiion made her feel extremely uneasy. She ’t help but have intrusive thoughts like, “What if I ’t reassemble?” and iably gets cold feet.

  Still, she had to admit… it looked like an amazing skill. Even as a newly inaugurated, inexperienced spirit, this much was exceedingly obvious. Hence, despite her unwillingness, she had already made up her mind to definitely learn it one day. It just wouldn’t be now.

  Fortunately, she wouldn’t have to. As implied by the he crystalline pilrs were well… pilrs. And although none of them were perfectly upright, parallel, or even straight, they were at least going up. Thus, as silly as it souhe meta for avoiding crystal pilrs was being a vertical line.

  Well… since I’m going to be moving in a dire, I guess there won’t be much point in being as thin as a straw… estimated Chara.

  vinced, she started trying to visualize immediately.

  A bit further away, Curiosity had been watg with great anticipation as the little spirit’s mana rippled full of thoughts and imagination.

  She had never inteo divulge so muformation, but si had already happened, it couldn’t be helped. Now, she was more ied in seeing how the little spirit would hahis difficult situation.

  Previously, she had dispyed an astounding prehension ability when she quickly learned how to speak, and ter, she dispyed even more remarkable critical thinking skills wheheorized about the colpsing cave, even if her clusion was wrong.

  Now that she had been given such a wellspring of information, Curiosity was super curious about what the little genius would e up with . And by the looks of it, she would get her answer very soon.

  Finished with her calcutions, Chara’s mana had stopped rippling and bee as calm as a ke.

  Notig the tell-tale signs of a spirit taking scious trol of their mana, Curiosity focused her gaze on Baby’s dire with increased attentiveness.

  The little spirit’s mana started wobbling uneasily, like it was trying to ge shape, but didn’t know how to do it. After a bout of uneasy struggling, she stopped, appearing to have given up.

  Suddenly, she started spinning faster and faster, until she had bee a spiraling sphere that could roll away at any moment. Once she had reached a det speed, she slowly started ging her shape, being ftter and ftter, until she had bee as ft as a pancake!

  maury