Ren had discovered something important.
People were complicated.
Him seeing auras made that considerably worse.
He sat beneath the same tree he had been using for the past several days, rubbing his right ring finger.
The world changed.
Colors appeared.
A woman carrying a basket walked past him — mostly white, a faint purple around her head, blue around her throat, green around her chest, yellow around her stomach, red around her arms and legs.
Ren watched.
Nothing unusual.
Then someone called her name.
She stopped, and the colors shifted.
Ren narrowed his eyes.
The purple around her head became slightly lighter.
The green changed as well, becoming more…
vibrant beneath the white.
The woman turned toward the person who had called her.
Her expression brightened.
The colors changed again.
Ren blinked.
He shut Spirit Vision down, rubbed his right ring finger, and activated it again.
The woman was still talking.
The colors were still changing.
Not randomly.
They followed her emotions.
Ren had suspected as much.
Now he was certain.
“Interesting.”
He watched for several minutes.
A child ran past, laughing — the colors around the child’s body seemed brighter.
An old man sat nearby with his eyes closed — mostly white, a little duller than the others.
Someone argued with a shopkeeper — their colors became darker.
Someone received good news — the colors seemed to become lighter.
Ren couldn’t determine exactly what every change meant.
And that was the problem.
Spirit Vision showed him that something had changed.
It didn’t automatically tell him what had changed.
Ren scratched his cheek.
“So it’s not a translation.”
That seemed important.
He had initially thought Spirit Vision would work like a magical diagnosis — see a dark patch, understand the disease; see a strange color, understand the emotion.
But it wasn’t that simple.
The colors gave him information, but he still had to interpret them, and that was beginning to sound familiar.
Ren smiled faintly.
“Seer.”
He had spent weeks trying to figure out what a Seer was supposed to do.
Maybe he was finally beginning to understand.
A Seer didn’t simply see.
A Seer interpreted what he saw.
That was a much less convenient and a much more annoying ability.
Ren deactivated Spirit Vision.
His head was beginning to ache.
He had learned to recognize the warning signs — the first few minutes were fine, then came the pressure behind his eyes, then the headache, then, if he ignored it, his danger intuition began screaming at him.
He had already learned not to ignore that.
Ren leaned against the tree.
He thought about the people he had encountered.
The farmer.
The merchant.
The woman whose husband was coming home.
The ronin.
All of them had shown him something — not necessarily with Spirit Vision.
Sometimes it had been their words.
Sometimes their expressions.
Sometimes their posture.
Sometimes simply the things they refused to say.
And that was probably why he had managed to stumble through his first few days as a Seer.
He had been observing people, even without realizing it.
The potion had enhanced something that was already useful.
But there was still one problem.
He wasn’t supposed to become a village counselor.
He was supposed to act as a Seer.
Ren frowned.
“Acting.”
The word reminded him of the system.
He still hadn’t figured out what it meant.
The potion didn’t simply give him abilities — there was apparently a correct way to behave.
A Seer was supposed to act like a Seer.
Ren had spent most of his time trying to understand what that meant.
He had thought it meant predicting the future.
Then he had decided it meant reading people.
Now, he wasn’t so sure.
Maybe divination really was important.
Maybe the problem had been that he was approaching it incorrectly.
Ren looked down at the handful of crude tools he had brought with him — three coins, several stones, a few sticks, a length of string.
He had carried them with him when he left the previous village.
They were remnants of his first attempts.
The first attempts had been useless.
He had tossed coins.
Nothing.
He had thrown stones.
Nothing.
He had watched sticks fall.
Nothing.
He had stared into water.
Nothing.
At the time, Ren had assumed that divination simply wasn’t working.
Now he wondered if he had been missing something obvious.
Spirit Vision required something from him.
He didn’t know what.
It felt like his spirit was being moved, so that was what he called it.
Spirituality.
A name made up from the limited knowledge of fantasy movies and novels he had consumed.
He didn’t know whether that was the proper name.
He didn’t know whether anyone else called it that, or even had it, but it made sense to him.
Spirit Vision felt like he was using something inside himself — something intangible, something that wasn’t quite his body and wasn’t quite his mind.
Spirituality.
And perhaps divination required the same thing.
Ren picked up one of the coins.
He stared at it.
“Let’s try again.”
The first thing Ren realized was that he had been asking the wrong questions.
His original experiments had been absurd.
Will I become rich?
What will happen tomorrow?
Will I survive in this world?
Who is going to attack me?
He had expected a handful of stones and three copper coins to answer questions that would have required an oracle.
That was unreasonable, so Ren simplified.
He needed something with an obvious answer — something that could be tested, something where he already knew the truth.
He looked at the coin in his hand.
Heads and tails.
That was it.
A perfect yes-or-no tool.
Or so he thought.
Ren placed the coin on the ground.
“Will I have rice tonight?”
He flipped it.
Heads.
He frowned and flipped it again.
Tails.
Again.
Heads.
Again.
Tails.
Ren stared at the coin.
“Very helpful.”
He tried another question.
“Will the sun rise tomorrow?”
Heads.
He flipped again.
Tails.
Ren sighed.
The coin was simply a coin.
It had no reason to care about his questions.
He tried putting the coin between his palms.
He concentrated and tried using that strange inner sensation.
Nothing.
He flipped it.
Tails.
Again — heads.
Again — tails.
Still nothing.
Ren stared at the coin.
Perhaps the problem was that the coin gave him too much freedom — there were only two possibilities, yes or no.
But what if the answer was uncertain?
What if the answer depended on something?
What if there was a difference between yes and probably yes?
A coin couldn’t express that.
It couldn’t even express the difference between a strong yes and a weak yes.
Ren set it aside.
“Too simple.”
But he immediately shook his head and reconsidered.
“No.
Not simple enough.”
That was the strange thing — he had thought simpler meant worse.
Maybe the opposite was true.
The simpler the question, the easier it should be to divine.
And perhaps the simpler the tool, the less information Ren had to force through it.
He looked at the coin again.
A coin could answer yes or no.
But perhaps it wasn’t supposed to answer by itself.
That thought made him pause.
He picked it up.
The coin had always been the same.
Whether he used it before or now, it hadn’t changed.
The difference was him.
That meant his previous attempts had failed because he had treated the coin as the source of the divination.
Maybe the object wasn’t the source.
Maybe it was only the medium.
Ren frowned.
“Then what am I supposed to do?”
He tried again.
He held the coin between his fingers, closed his eyes, and focused on that strange sensation inside himself.
He felt it.
Barely.
Something moved through him — not physical energy, not exactly.
It was closer to the sensation of Spirit Vision beginning — spirituality?
Ren concentrated on the coin.
He imagined the same sensation flowing into it.
Nothing happened.
His forehead began to ache, so he stopped.
“Too much.”
He waited, then tried again — this time imagining the coin as an extension of his own senses.
The sensation was strange.
Not physically, but somehow spiritually.
Ren opened his eyes.
The coin was still a coin.
Nothing magical had happened.
But he could feel something very faintly.
He placed it on the ground.
“Is the village well east of here?”
He flipped the coin.
Heads.
Ren looked toward the village.
He wasn’t entirely sure.
He walked over.
The well was west.
Ren stared at the coin.
“Wrong.”
He tried again — this time asking something he knew.
“Is the sun currently above me?”
Heads.
He looked up.
Obviously yes.
He tried again.
“Is there a tree behind me?”
Tails.
He turned.
The tree didn’t move away from him.
He frowned.
That was wrong.
He tried again.
Nothing.
The result wasn’t consistent.
Ren sat down.
Maybe the coin really was a bad tool.
Or perhaps he was still doing something wrong.
He looked at the objects scattered around him — stones, coins, sticks, string, a pebble.
Ren picked up the string.
He tied one end around the pebble, then held it up.
The pebble swung gently as Ren watched.
Unlike a coin, it didn’t have to give him only one of two fixed results.
It could move.
It could change speed.
It could become more or less pronounced.
There was more information available.
Ren thought about it.
If the pendulum was going to answer yes-or-no questions, he needed a consistent language.
He couldn’t simply decide that “toward the road” meant yes.
That would make the answer dependent on where he happened to be sitting.
He needed something that remained the same no matter where he was.
Ren watched the pebble hanging from the string.
Then an idea occurred to him.
A circle.
Clockwise.
Counterclockwise.
That was consistent.
“Clockwise means yes.”
He slowly rotated the pendulum with his fingers.
“Counterclockwise means no.”
He stopped.
“And the faster it turns…” Ren considered it.
“The stronger the answer.”
That seemed much more useful.
A weak clockwise rotation could mean a hesitant yes.
A powerful clockwise rotation could mean an emphatic yes.
The same applied to no.
Ren smiled.
“That should work.”
At least in theory.
He held the string between two fingers.
He focused.
The same inner sensation flowed into his hand, then into the string, then the pebble.
At least, that was how it felt.
Ren swallowed.
“Is there a river near this village?”
He concentrated on the question.
Then he allowed the pendulum to hang freely.
At first, it barely moved.
Then it began to turn.
Clockwise.
Slowly.
Ren stared as the rotation became slightly stronger before settling into a gentle clockwise swing.
Ren frowned.
He stood and walked for about two minutes before hearing the gentle stream.
The river was indeed nearby.
He returned to his tree.
“Well, that worked.” Ron muttered thoughtfully.
Maybe.
But he wasn’t ready to call it a complete success.
He tried again.
“Is there a river near the village?” This time, he tried not to deliberately think about the answer.
He focused on the pendulum.
He allowed that strange sensation to flow into it.
The pebble began rotating.
Clockwise.
Again.
Ren’s eyes widened.
He repeated the process.
Clockwise.
Again.
Clockwise.
Ren’s smile widened.
This was different.
He had done something.
Not because the pebble was magical, but because he had put something into it.
Spirituality.
That was the missing piece.
His old coin divinations had failed because he had simply flipped coins.
His old sticks had failed because he had simply thrown sticks.
The tools weren’t the problem.
He had been treating them like ordinary objects.
Divination required him to participate.
The potion gave him the qualification to participate.
And the tool was merely the thing that turned his spirituality into an answer.
Ren looked at the pebble.
“You’re finally useful.”
The pebble continued rotating gently.
Ren decided not to take that personally.
*****
He spent the next several days experimenting.
The first thing he learned was that the question mattered enormously.
Simple questions were easy.
Complicated questions were not.
“Is there a river nearby?” Easy.
“Is the western road safer than the eastern road?” Much harder.
“Will I meet someone dangerous tomorrow?” Unclear.
“Will I survive the next month?” Ren didn’t even try that one twice.
The farther into the future the question went, the more difficult the divination became.
The more possibilities involved, the less stable the answer became.
That made sense — if he asked something simple, there was less information to interpret.
If he asked something complicated, it was as though he were trying to pull an entire story through a tiny hole.
His head hurt just thinking about it.
So Ren changed his approach.
Instead of asking one complicated question, he broke it apart.
Was the road dangerous?
The pendulum rotated clockwise.
Yes.
Was it more dangerous than the western road?
Clockwise again.
Yes.
Was the danger caused by bandits?
The pendulum began rotating counterclockwise, but slowly.
Ren frowned.
No.
Or at least, probably no.
Were there people waiting ahead?
Clockwise.
Weakly.
Ren frowned.
That was interesting.
He was beginning to understand the difference between simply receiving an answer and interpreting the strength of that answer.
A fast, forceful rotation felt different from a barely perceptible one.
He couldn’t say exactly what the difference represented yet.
Certainty?
Intensity?
Probability?
Something else?
He didn’t know, but it was information.
Ren tested it repeatedly.
“Is there a village nearby?” The pendulum spun clockwise with considerable force.
“Is there a large city nearby?” A weak clockwise rotation.
“Is there a shrine nearby?” Moderate.
He followed the answer.
There was indeed another small shrine less than an hour away.
Ren stared at the pendulum.
“So that’s what you mean by intensity.”
It wasn’t exactly certainty.
At least, Ren didn’t think so.
It was more like the strength of the answer — a strong yes, a weak yes, a strong no, a weak no.
The distinction mattered.
A coin could only say yes or no, but the pendulum could tell him how strongly the answer leaned.
Ren began experimenting with people.
He didn’t immediately ask personal questions — that felt invasive.
Instead, he started with harmless things.
“Is that man carrying rice?” Clockwise.
Yes.
He checked.
Rice.
“Is that woman heading toward the well?” Clockwise.
Yes.
She was.
“Is the old man going to leave the village today?” The pendulum rotated counterclockwise.
Slowly.
Ren waited.
The old man stayed.
That was interesting.
Perhaps the answer wasn’t simply “no.” Perhaps it meant uncertainty.
Ren didn’t know.
He needed more testing, so he continued.
The next tool he tried was a stick — even simpler than the pendulum.
Ren found a straight branch and placed one end lightly against the ground, the other pointing upward.
The idea was simple: ask a direction-related question, then let the stick fall.
Whichever direction it pointed toward would be the answer.
At least, that was the theory.
Ren asked, “Which direction is the river?”
He infused the stick with spirituality, then released it.
The stick fell toward the west.
Ren went west.
The river was east.
He stared at the stick.
“You’re fired.”
He tried again, realizing he had been holding the branch too tightly.
This time, he let the stick rest gently on the ground.
He didn’t push it.
He simply fed his spirituality into it.
“Which direction is the river?” He released it.
The branch tipped.
North.
Ren frowned.
He checked.
Nothing.
Again — south.
Still wrong.
Ren sat down.
The stick was more difficult than the pendulum.
Maybe because he was trying to make a physical object choose a direction.
He experimented for hours.
Eventually, he realized something — he had been trying to predict the answer before the divination.
Every time he had an expectation, his hand moved slightly.
Not enough for him to notice.
Enough to affect the stick.
So Ren tried something different.
He asked the question, then emptied his mind.
No answer.
No expectation.
No direction.
He let the spirituality flow through the stick, then released it.
The branch fell east.
Ren stared.
He checked.
The river was east.
He returned.
Asked again.
East.
Again.
East.
Ren’s eyes widened.
It worked.
Not perfectly.
But it worked.
The important part was that he hadn’t physically directed it.
He had allowed his spirituality to enter the tool.
The tool had responded.
Ren sat beneath the tree for a long time afterward.
He looked at the stick, then the pendulum, then the coins.
The old coins hadn’t been useless.
He had simply been useless.
Ren laughed.
“That’s becoming a theme.”
He picked up one of the coins.
Perhaps he could use it eventually.
But for now, the pendulum was better — it gave him more information.
The stick was useful for directions.
The coin was simple but inflexible.
Each tool had a purpose.
That was another thing he was learning.
Divination wasn’t one ability.
It was a collection of methods — different tools, different questions, different levels of reliability.
And all of them required the same thing.
Spirituality.
Ren began thinking more seriously about what a Seer was supposed to do.
He had been approaching the problem backward.
He had thought:
I have these abilities.
What can I do with them?
Perhaps he should ask:
What does a Seer need to do?
The answer seemed obvious.
A Seer divined.
A Seer interpreted.
A Seer observed.
A Seer guided.
And, if the stories and strange memories surrounding the potion were anything to go by, a Seer should probably understand rituals as well.
Ren still didn’t know how to perform proper ritual magic.
He knew he had an instinctive talent for learning it, but talent wasn’t knowledge.
He would need to study.
Eventually.
For now, divination was enough.
He looked at the pendulum.
A question.
A tool.
Spirituality.
An answer.
Then interpretation.
That was the basic process.
It was almost disappointingly mundane.
There was no thunder.
No voice from the heavens.
No mysterious symbol appearing in the air.
Just a pebble turning on a string.
Yet Ren trusted it more than he trusted the dramatic visions he had imagined.
Because it was repeatable.
He could test it.
He could improve.
And that mattered.
Ren began keeping mental rules.
The easier the question, the easier the divination.
The closer the answer, the better.
The fewer possibilities, the clearer the result.
The more information he already had, the easier interpretation became.
And most importantly —
Never ask a complicated question when several simple questions could reach the same answer.
That last rule seemed particularly important.
He could ask:
Will this road be dangerous?
Then:
Is the danger caused by people?
Then:
Are there more than three people?
Then:
Are they waiting ahead?
Each answer would narrow the possibilities.
That was much better than asking:
What will happen if I take this road?
Ren smiled.
He was beginning to think like a Seer.
Or at least, he hoped he was.
He still hadn’t figured out the acting method.
He still hadn’t fully understood what “digesting the potion” meant.
He still had no idea what the gray fog was.
He definitely wasn’t going to think about the message warning him not to let something awaken.
One problem at a time.
For now — he had divination.
He had Spirit Vision.
He had Danger Intuition.
And he had a few primitive tools.
That was enough.
Ren stood.
He placed the pendulum in his pocket, then picked up the stick.
He looked toward the road.
There were several directions he could travel from this small village.
For the first time, he considered using divination not because he was desperate and wanted to try his luck, but because he actually knew how.
He rubbed his right ring finger.
Spirit Vision activated.
The familiar colors appeared.
He shut it down.
Then he held the string.
He closed his eyes.
That strange sensation moved through him.
Spirituality.
He allowed it to flow into the string and into the pebble.
“Which road should I take?”
He paused.
Then frowned.
Too complicated.
He opened his eyes.
“No.”
He smiled.
He was learning.
He asked a simpler question.
“Is the eastern road safe?” The string remained still.
Ren stared at it, then laughed.
“That’s not an answer.”
He looked at the road.
The eastern road stretched toward the hills.
The western road led toward the fields.
Ren tried once more.
“Is the western road safer than the easter road?”
A weak clockwise spin.
There.
That was better.
He had turned a complicated decision into smaller questions.
It wasn’t prophecy.
It wasn’t certainty.
But it was information.
And information was useful.
Ren put the stick away, then looked at his right ring finger.
His trigger.
His Spirit Vision.
His divination.
His spirituality.
He had spent weeks trying to understand what a Seer was.
Perhaps he had been expecting something too dramatic.
Maybe being a Seer wasn’t about knowing everything.
Maybe it was about asking the right question.
Ren smiled.
“Now that’s something I can work with.”
He began walking toward the western road.
Behind him, the village continued its ordinary life.
Ahead of him was another road.
Another day.
Another question.
And somewhere deep inside him, the potion continued to digest.
Ren didn’t know what would happen when it finished.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
But for the first time since drinking it, he felt that he was finally moving in the right direction.
Not because he could see the future, but because he had finally learned how to look for an answer.