Not only did they have a week to prepare for their second match, they also knew exactly who their opponent would be: Famaj's team. The Farmguard was quite cheerful about it, expressing anticipation for the match without any hint of rivalry, but Theo still felt a flicker of annoyance. He decided to leave the reconnaissance to Nauda and focused on his soulcrafting.

Unfortunately, no prizes were awarded for the first round, he'd exhausted his money, and no one was handing out useful sublime materials. He'd acquired as much ore from the mine and fruit from the orchards as they would hand out, just in case, but hadn't come up with anything yet.

At the moment, he was staring at the bogstone while idly hammering apart a piece of stone. He hoped that inspiration would strike, but while it didn't, he at least wanted to accomplish something. Using some of the more ordinary sublime ore from the mine, he'd begun soulcrafting one of his empty chambers. He'd borrowed Fiyu's spirit lantern and was using it to melt down and reshape the stone into a specific pattern.

What he'd crafted was a representation of the time-space continuum, with objects of great mass distorting it, except instead of a planet he'd created a replica of his soulhome. It was a slightly dubious exercise, but he'd poured everything he knew about gravity into the construction of it. In theory, it would allow him his first technique once his heart chamber began working, not that it seemed likely to.

Once that was finished, he'd begun adding trim and more elaborate door frames, just to add some polish to the path between the room and the central chamber. He'd etched gravitational symbols on them, but didn't delude himself into thinking that would make a huge difference. Having a more polished room might strengthen his technique slightly. At best. Presuming he got any of it working.

With a growl of frustration, Theo took a massive swing at the rock. It cracked in half and several pieces went flying across the room, breaking against the glossy black walls.

Except some of the fragments slid directly into the bogstone, sinking into it rapidly and leaving only ripples. Those ripples grew and distorted one another until the stone began to lift into the air, its surface bubbling strangely...

And then it dropped back to the ground. The reaction was over, nothing fundamentally changed, and the bogstone was just a little more dense than before.

Yet as he bent down to examine it, Theo realized that he finally had his answer. He needed to transform the bogstone from a simple material representing a bog to a core representing a significant source of mass. What better way than to have it absorb other sublime materials? It was a bit of a mental stretch, but an influx of new cantae from other materials would help smooth over the process.

Theo sat down and took several deep breaths, trying to figure out if there were many major flaws in his plan. It was no blueprint considered for decades, but he thought that it would work. At worst, he didn't think that the bogstone could explode. He couldn't afford not to take the chance.

He started with the useless fragments of stone he had left over, but their reactions were similarly short-lived. A bit of experimentation led him to discover that if he spun the sphere, the ripples stabilized and it stayed in the air longer. But even though it was growing denser and denser, it didn't seem to be getting closer to a fundamental transformation. There had to be something, more of a reaction...

His gaze fell on the slate of magnigem. It was by far the densest sublime material he owned, stubbornly resisting cantae and other effects. Though he'd planned to use it as a pedestal for some future ability, it might also be just the right material for a transformation. After a bit more thought, Theo picked it up and dropped it onto the bogstone.

This time it wasn't absorbed easily, the two sublime materials reacting violently with one another and sending cantae in all directions. But the blackened walls resisted it, and he hadn't rebuilt the roof, so he only needed to endure the blast.

Lifting his new combined core into the air, Theo began squeezing it with his bare hands, throwing all his willpower against the mass. As he spun it, he reminded himself of who he was. A bitter old man who had been a fool as a child, spent miserable years seeking that lost youth, and had nearly lost his second chance pursing that dream. His sun had collapsed, leaving nothing but a black hole that consumed everything...

When he opened his eyes, the sublime materials had surrendered to his will. A dark sphere the size of his head hovered in the air in the center of his soulhome, force cascading from it. Theo quickly spun it, forcing it to balance. This time the process seemed to ignite a reaction and it continued to spin... but also start to drift toward the ground.

Theo knew he was close, but it wasn't quite self-sustaining: it needed more mass. He experimentally threw all the remaining stone into the core and saw it vanish without a trace, increasing its mass a little further. Laughing as he realized that it would work, he rushed through his soulhome, grabbing up every sublime material without a critical purpose and hurling it into the core. Though he hesitated for a moment before adding the demonic materials, they were absorbed all the same. The nature of the materials didn't matter, they were all just mass to him.

At last, when he had thrown away everything else, a black core of power rotated in the center of his soulhome. It was as dense as all the sublime materials combined, though of course it wasn't really a singularity. No amount of willpower could bridge a gap like that.

Still, it had been a success. Cantae rushed from the core, some of it lost into the sky, but most of it flowing through his outer chambers just as he'd planned. Though he didn't like how it hung unsupported, it seemed to be locked into place by the blackened walls of the central chamber. Those had been his frame of reference, after all, and they had been created by the implosion of a metaphorical sun. The heart of his soulhome now felt stable.

When he walked to the only chamber that he'd soulcrafted, he discovered that it was drinking up the new cantae, just as he'd hoped. Now that he'd soulcrafted more than walls, he could do better than just reinforcing his body with cantae. Instead, he should be able to manifest it in an actual ability...

Returning to the real world, Theo tried his first experiment on a cup in his room, and found himself laughing again. Finally, it had worked.

Of course, he quickly discovered all the limitations of his new skill. He suspected that it would be possible for him to create new sources of "spiritual mass" and use gravity in extremely creative ways, but that required far more power than he had, or that he would ever possess as a first tier soulcrafter. So the only options available to him were to manipulate gravitational fields related to existing sources of mass, and only the world itself was massive enough to matter.

That would be enough, or so he hoped. He also discovered that he was limited to only a single gravitational effect at once, no matter how he tried to practice. However, he suspected that the limitation could be overcome with significant soulcrafting, which would be ongoing work for years. As much as he'd accomplished that day, it was just finding the path he intended to walk.

The process had taken him four of the six days they had before the next match, so Theo used his remaining time to stress test his core and single technique chamber. In between those sessions, he finally let himself consider their opponents again, as he could actually play a significant role on their team now.

Fortunately, he hadn't missed all of the interesting matches. He was able to attend one of Navim's fights, which the Mundhin won by virtue of being nearly impossible to push out of the ring. One of the last matches before the next round involved Famaj's team, and he was surprised to note that Famaj was near Archcrafter, his soulhome straining against the sky. If he obtained the right sublime materials from the contest, he could probably ascend.

Not that it would matter, if Theo played his cards right.

Only one observation ruined his good mood: he saw Kuber talking to Magnafor, and when he asked about it later, Kuber wouldn't explain anything about their conversation. But judging from how much soulcrafting he was doing, Magnafor must have given him a suggestion. Theo still couldn't think of any way Kuber could reach Archcrafter quickly to use his armament, but it was possible that Magnafor was more experienced when it came to that.

The day before the match, Theo sat in his room as usual, focusing on his preparations. He was so absorbed in his work that he didn't notice someone outside his soulhome until he heard a soft cough and saw that Fiyu and Nauda were standing by his door.

"You have accomplished something, yes?" Fiyu craned her head at him curiously, trying to peer into his soulhome. "Must it be a secret? Will you tell us?"

"Sorry, I've just been distracted." Theo realized that it was senseless to keep shutting them out, he just wasn't used to being open with anyone. He got to his feet and brushed off his hands, even though he'd only been working spiritually. "Yeah, you should know about what I can do now. Actually, you can help me test. It would be embarrassing if I find out it doesn't work on a resisting soulcrafter."

Nauda raised her eyebrows. "You seem very confident."

Theo grinned. "Want to help me find out if it's justified?"