Silent Whisper

"What?" Was the only word Veronica managed. She already expected this answer, but hearing the conformation was very different than believing it.

Michael just chuckled at her dumbfounded expression and repeated himself.

It took a few minutes for Veronica to rethink everything. While waiting Michael played with Silent Whisper, which was quite distracting.

Eventually she came to the conclusion that either she is the luckiest person alive, or someone planned all this...

The real issue was her lack of knowledge on the subject. It was like finding a dozen pieces from a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle.

'Maybe that letter will help me!' This was her last hopeful thought before deciding to drop this subject now.

The next information she thought of was the ascended characteristic...

'So when an ascended dies, their characteristic isn't fully gone... Wonder if they can somehow be destroyed, or they are like matter and energy, and they can only change forms, but can't disappear fully... Wait didn't he say they have all the main ingredients, even the ones from the previous orders?'

This only occurred to her now. Suze explicitly told her about the dangers of using the wrong, or more than necessary of the right main ingredients, for ascension. She said it would hundred percent lead to corruption!

But if the ascended characteristic held a Dancer characteristic as well as a Flexible Warrior one, then she couldn't use it.

After thinking about it a while longer she told Michael her concerns, but as it turns out there was something Suze had failed to tell her about the rule.

"You can consume more main ingredients of your previous Orders, or your current one. The only issue occurs when you try to do it with Orders higher than you are. Doing this will also increase your power by a tiny margin, its not really worthy it. Instead you should turn characteristics into Items."

Veronica nodded along paying a lot of attention to Michael's every word.

"So I shouldn't use the characteristic for ascending to the 7th Order?" She asked curiously. Michael firmly shook his head before answering.

"No, you should definitely use it. Another important part of this rule is the exception..." As he spoke he spun the knife on the edge of his finger, precariously close to Veronica's head.

"...You consuming a characteristic of your own and previous order won't do much, but consuming it while ascending will greatly increase your power. It's also a bit more dangerous, but as I said before, you won't be experiencing real problems with ascension for a while."

Veronica remembered that conversation very well since it was only a few hours ago. It had to do with her heritage and inheritance, or something like that. Her eyes were a mark of her parents' ascended status.

She still didn't really understand where this eye color had come from, but her working theory was that it related to the Theater in some way. This was also part of that unsolvable puzzle... She only received more and more questions, but no real answers.

It was really annoying and she was way too tired to think about it.

Her lazy eyes moved to the rainbow dagger Michael was still playing with. Only now did she remember, that she interrupted his explanation relating to its powers.

"Care to continue what my new magical dagger can do?" She asked with a bright smile, which caused Michael to chuckle.

"Oh yeah, forgot about that... So, its name is the Silent Whisper and its made of a 6th Order characteristic. As you probably know and seen the power of each order doesn't increase linearly. It increases exponentially..." He seemed very excited about this topic, but Veronica cut in, while staring with an extremely confused expression.

"I have no idea what are you talking about." She said in a flat tone, but it didn't dishearten Michael at all. Instead he seemed even happier to go into a more in depth explanation.

"Okay, lets try another way, so you can understand..." He took a deep breath and finally stopped playing with the dagger.

"...You as an 8th Order could fight with others from your order level with some effort. This changes drastically as you have experienced two times already. The Demon was stupid and didn't utilize her powers, but when you fought against Floyd you probably noticed the difference between a strong opponent of a higher order."

Veronica nodded. Fighting against the Demon, she knew how bad her opponent fought. But fighting against someone competent of a higher order was similar to a death sentence. Even Michael nearly died because he wasn't prepared enough... She had no chance at all.

"But this drastic change gets worse with each order. I'm only familiar with these changes until the 4th Order, that's when the changes between orders turns explosive..."

"Why is that?" Asked Veronica between sentences.

"As I said I'm not familiar with the later orders, but from what I know you gain some divinity after ascending to the 4th Order. This is something every church keeps as a secret. I only know that after 3rd Order they refer to ascended as Angels."

Veronica was really curious to learn more of these so called 'angels' and their power, but since Michael didn't really know anything about them, she stayed silent.

After being silent for a few seconds, he continued with the explanation.

"The jump in power from 5th to 4th is more drastic than the jump in power between a regular human to someone from the 5th Order. I don't even want to think about how powerful people are when they reach the 3rd, 2nd, or 1st Order."

This sent a shiver down Veronica's spine. She thought herself powerful before, then she considered Floyd to be powerful, but as it turned out they were ridiculously weak compared to the real powerhouses.

Michael's expression turned serious as he looked down at Veronica.

"How far do you plan on going?" He asked, causing Veronica to stare at him with confusion.

"How far am I planning on going? What do you mean?" Michael just sighed and turned away.

"I'm talking about ascension. I know you want to advance to the 7th Order, but what after that? Do you plan on going further to the 6th and 5th? When do you plan on stopping?"

These questions were a bit overwhelming. She never thought about this in depth since she wasn't prepared to acquire her means of ascension so soon.

"I have no idea. I know that each advancement gets more dangerous..." Before she could continue Michael cut in.

"It gets dangerous alright! But not because of the actual ritual... The danger comes in the day-to-day life. Having so much power corrupts you, not in the supernatural way, but humane way. The rapid change in power makes you believe you are a god, which leads to you losing your humanity..."

This wasn't the first time she heard this, but it was such a far fetched idea for her. She couldn't imagine what that would be like... But she had a feeling that it would be one of the worst things that could happen to her.

Her eyes got more tired as time passed and looking to the side Michael seemed the same. His previous firm expression turned exhausted, he was even worse off than Veronica since unlike her, he had no chance to sleep even for an hour or two.

He still held onto the dagger. Veronica yawned and spoke afterward.

"Lets finish the explanation, so I can go to sleep... I can sleep here right? I don't want to walk all the way home..." Michael's head bobbed down again, but as Veronica spoke he became alert.

"We do have a private carriage, but you can sleep here. The door can be locked from the inside. Billie's husband Rob ordered it that way, and they frequently use this room if they want some alone time while working." Veronica looked bewildered, then they both burst out laughing.

"On work hours? I admire the dedication! Why are you letting them?" She asked curiously.

"Well, its not like they do it everyday, and our job is actually quite boring on most days. This past month with all the escalating protests gave us more work than the entire year!"

Veronica turned thoughtful about that. It was a strange timing now that she thought of it.

She arrived just about a month ago, around the same time the protests started and they started to escalate when she became an ascended. The times were strangely coincidental, which caused a bit of alarm.

These thoughts lasted until Michael began speaking again.

"So lets try this a third time! This knife is called Silent Whisper, its made of a 6th Order characteristic. I don't know the order's name, but I pretty sure it's from the Soundless path..."

Veronica's interest got piqued by that instantly. She read that this path was possibly the most dangerous in later orders, and everyone seemed to be afraid of them for some reason.

"...The dagger as a weapon is not that strong. When you stab someone with it and pull it out, it inflicts the individual with a random poison. There are hundreds if not thousands of known poisons. A lot of them are lethal, but there is also a lot that causes stomach ache, or something more disgusting like explosive diarrhea. Not that useful in a fight..."

"Yeah, I can feel that!" She said mockingly. Most of her body was still unresponsive, from said poisonous effect.

"This paralyzer you got affected with is very potent, but again, you had a lot more chance to just shit yourself, so do with that information what you will." Veronica looked appalled by what he said, but Michael just laughed and continued.

"One thing that's good about poisons is that normal healing potions can't remove them, especially the strong ones with tiny Ethereal Property. Those are a real bitch to cure!"

He put his hand to his mouth and yawned, which caused Veronica to yawn as well.

"This was the worse power, there is also anti-divination on it as I said before, plus it has a kind of camouflage. It has a perception filter, which stops people from noticing the blade even if it's in your hand. The only way they will notice it, if they feel threatened, or you make sudden movements with it, like a stab towards someone."

She nodded while trying to keep her eyes open.

"The powerful ability is what Floyd used to keep the sound inside that bubble. There is two forms of it. One of them fully silences the inside of the bubble, the other just simply doesn't let the noise leave it. This is an amazing weapon for both an assassin or just a very sneaky person..."

He was about to speak more, but he noticed Veronica's closed eyes and calm breathing.

"Who knew that describing a powerful weapon's abilities is a great lullaby?" He whispered to himself and chuckled a bit.

He spent the next few minutes watching Veronica sleep, then he stood up, took a quick bath and returned to the room in a change of clothes.

He then locked the door from the inside and laid down on the other side of the sofa, where he promptly fell asleep after closing his eyes for a second.