Chapter 120: Insight Into Immense Power Finn gritted his teeth, about to respond, then stopped. His mind was too busy. Too jumbled and full. The surreal realism of that memory, the complete immersion, the fact that he’d been Arros for that duration... The person was clearly an Error user. No — not just any Error user. He was the True holder of the Error path. The original. That experience had given him insight. Deep, fundamental insight into how Error worked at the highest level. Insight he didn’t want to waste by letting it fade while he stood here trying to cook up an explanation for Osmund. Already, he could feel the memory starting to become less sharp. Like a dream upon waking, which’s details were beginning to slip away like water through fingers. "I need—" Finn started, then shook his head. "Later." He stood abruptly, pulling away from Osmund’s steadying hands. "What? wait—" Osmund reached out, almost grabbing him, then stopped himself. His face was burning with curiosity, practically vibrating with unasked questions. "Later," Finn repeated firmly. Osmund’s jaw worked, clearly warring between demanding answers and respecting the contract terms that gave Finn autonomy. Finally, he nodded stiffly. "Fine. But we will discuss what just happened." Finn was already walking away, heading for the treeline. His mind was elsewhere, replaying images, sensations, that overwhelming sense of understanding he’d glimpsed. He barely registered the path back. The forest, the incline, the house on the hill, all of it passed in a blur of distracted steps. His body moved on autopilot while his consciousness remained half-immersed in the memory of being someone else. Someone infinitely more powerful. The door to his room appeared in front of him suddenly. He must have climbed the stairs, walked the corridor, but he had no memory of it. Finn entered, locked the door behind him with trembling fingers, and immediately sat cross-legged on the floor. Digest it. All of it. Every sight, every sound, every sensation before it fades... He started from the beginning. The gate. The family. The little boy named Arros playing with his figurines. But his mind kept jumping ahead to the important parts. The numbers. Those two values Arros had seen floating above people’s heads after touching his eyes. Power and fate, measured quantitatively. A spell — no, a permanent effect — that analyzed reality itself and displayed relevant information. How? Finn thought desperately. How did he make that work? Was it pure Error manipulation, or was there something else involved? He tried to recall the sensation when Arros had activated it. The way his fingers had brushed his eyelids. The shift in perception. The stabilization from chaos into organized data. It felt like... like Arros was telling reality: "The information is already there, you’re just displaying it wrong. Show me the correct version." Making the world acknowledge an error in how it presented information, then correcting that error to reveal hidden truths in a manner that he decided was true. In a manner that made sense to him and him alone... He filed that insight away and moved forward in the memory. The Calamity beast... and the spell used to dematerialize it in one shot. [Flame Blast]. Finn replayed it in his mind over and over, trying to capture every nuance. The way the world had dimmed. The way the air reached super heated temperatures without any build up whatsoever. To any onlooker Arros’ spell would have looked casual and effortless. But because he’d experienced it from the inside, being Arros for that duration, Finn definitely knew it wasn’t simple. In that split second between Arros deciding to cast the spell and the effect manifesting, so much had happened in the Transcendent’s mind. Calculations. Adjustments. Variables accounted for at speeds that shouldn’t be possible. The spell’s power output, calibrated precisely to obliterate a Calamity-class beast but not spread beyond the target. The trajectory, adjusted for the creature’s movement and the buildings below. The heat dissipation, controlled so the air around the beam didn’t ignite secondary fires that would kill the fleeing townsfolk. He even tweaked the shockwaves, shaped and directed them such that their damage to structures was minimal while still appearing impressively destructive. The sound, even — that bone-chilling groan instead of a sharp boom, was because Arros had adjusted the acoustic properties of the spell’s passage through air. All of it. Every single variable was considered, calculated, and implemented in the time it took for a thought to form. If Finn had to describe it, he’d say Arros was like a supercomputer. Processing spell variables at a level that was frankly insane, so efficiently that conscious thought had given way to subconscious execution. And to think that hadn’t been Arros’ magic at all... at least not directly. Arros didn’t have a "fire" concept. He had Error. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢 It was simply due to his understanding of Error that he had created flames of such a magnitude, it bordered on nuclear fusion. Error that convinced the world that the air within his sphere of influence was exactly what he wanted it to be. Not "I’m creating fire." But: "The air in this space is wrong. It should be superheated plasma. Reality made an error. I’m correcting it." Making the world itself acknowledge that the current state — normal air — was a mistake, and the intended state was actually a column of fusion-temperature flame. And yet, all of that within the confines of a spell... Finn was further amazed. All of what Arros did was still classified as a Spell. Not an Edict, and not a Declaration either. He sat there, eyes closed in comprehension, trying to decipher as much as he could from it. Already, his [Invalid] spell worked on a similar principle — making reality register false information — but his was limited to contact and required connection. But what if he could expand that? Make it more versatile? Versatile enough that even he could someday obliterate a calamity beast in one strike. A calamity beast that was so domineering, it had jarred him out of the dream state and made him aware again. ​Finn wasn’t particularly sure that was the true catalyst, though. There were plenty of earlier moments where the shock factor was high enough that the Mind-Cephalon should have forced him awake. But that was besides the point. The main thing was that the Calamity beast was not to be scoffed at. A terror of a creature in and of itself. One that if not for Arros’ presence, Finn was sure would’ve wiped out Brambleton in that memory instantly. For a creature that powerful to then be utterly erased in one hit, leaving not a single atom behind... That’s the level I need to reach, Finn thought grimly. If I’m going to face pantheons, face other fragment bearers, face whatever else is hunting me, that’s the baseline I should be aiming for... It felt impossibly distant. A goal so far beyond his current capabilities it might as well be on another planet. But he’d seen it. Experienced it. Knew it was possible. That had to count for something. Finn replayed the spell one more time, burning every detail into memory before it could fade further. Then he moved to the last moment... to the beautiful and valiant woman he saw before the memory came apart... Order.