Melena sat among the viny branches of a massive tree, the ground below barely visible and far away. "Today, I will be talking about condensing. It will also be my first attempt at proper editing. Condensing is a topic I have little first hand experience with, due to the fact I primarily relied on images and very few of the Patrons I ever get to fight use condensing as more than plan G.

"There is one Patron who got the position solely through his skill with condensing, however: The Patron of Swords. He will be the target dummy of the Patron with the strongest image relevant to today's discussion that I was able to get to agree to help me make this video: The Patron of Stars.

"Condensing is the act of using your soul material to materialize an item, much in the same way you can materialize an object using images. However, doing so is a much more lengthy process, as you must draw out the soul's material over time and shape it as you do. For anyone who has not created a soul armory yet, it is useless without already having made an item before the fight.

"A soul armory is a set of items you are so intimately familiar with that you can create them inside your soul, rather than in the real world. The benefit to doing so is that you can near-instantaneously call items from your armory out to the real world.

"The only benefit besides the soul armory's speed is the nigh-indestructibility of condensed items. The only thing we know of that can destroy a condensed item is another condensed item. To demonstrate this, here is a clip of the Patron of Stars destroying an asteroid with a surface area the size of the country of the United States of America, followed by a clip of the Patron of Swords nullifying that same attack."

In the near-featureless void of space, a quadrupedal being made of ice was looking at the camera. Their surface was entirely smooth, except around the face, where dark eyes stared back. With the ability to obtain "bio"mass through contact with water, the creature had no need for a mouth of any kind. Behind it was a large, rocky asteroid with a small white circle on its face.

The tip of Melena's finger showed on screen and parts of the creature's body melted and froze back into ice as it nodded and turned to face the meteor. Another camera shot showed a rocky landscape with a large, white circle around where the camera person stood. The camera then rapidly ascended from the ground until reaching the same shot as the first, just without the icy figure.

Then it returned to the Patron of Stars facing toward the asteroid. Not unlike a red version of Dragon Ball Z's Spirit Ball, a large ball of plasma started to form above the the body of the Patron. It rapidly grew too bright for the camera to see, and Melena needed to create a dark pane of glass so the camera could actually record anything. Not long after, it was easily a hundred miles across.

The micro-star was then sent toward the asteroid. It did not take long for the star to sink below the original surface of the asteroid and begin growing from the added mass. Silently, the asteroid was mostly devoured and the extra mass caused the star to create a nova, blowing it to chunks.

Not long after, the Patron caused the star to wink out of existence and the camera shot remained in place for multiple seconds, letting the carnage sink in before switching to a grassland. In it stood a dwarf holding a glowing yellow sword. "Ready you you are, Stars," he said.

The camera panned over to the Patron of Stars standing casually a few hundred feet away. They melted and refroze their body to turn to look at the camera, and Melena said, "Go ahead."

The Patron of Stars nodded and turned back to the Patron of Swords. They created the exact same size and color of star and sent it at the Patron of Swords. He simply held his sword out in front of him and let the star impact the sword. The star slowed immensely as it came into contact with the sword, and stopped entirely once it got to the hilt. A dark spot was created where the sword collided with it.

The star was forced to go supernova by the Patron of Stars, destroying the area around the Patron of Swords, but leaving everywhere behind the sword unscathed, including where Melena was standing. "This is why condensing is my way," said the Patron of Swords as the camera panned over the destruction wrought by the supernova. "No matter how powerful your image may be, it will never be able to compete with a condensed item."

The camera then panned back to the Patron of Swords as he said, "I just wish Loyalty was able to convince Destruction to come and take another shot at my sword. Haven't seen hide nor hair of them since the first time we fought in the Patron bracket of the Architect Tournament. Too prideful to admit there's something he can't destroy."

The video returned to Melena in the massive tree's branches. She said, "Don't worry. We didn't conduct either of those demonstrations on real planets. We used Swords's Patron world for it. Also, he went on a good 30 minute rant afterward about him and Destruction. I decided not to include it in this video.

"The final point I wish to talk about is soul strength. We have yet to find the exact quanta of the measurement of a soul's strength, but with your world's wonderful technology, it may just be possible. However, for now, soul strength is measured in Garjels. One Garjel is the difference in soul strength between the average soul strngth of a specific animal that does not exist on your world, but has a relationship to humans similar to that of the dog, and an average human.

"Soul Strength is determined at birth and cannot be changed. As far as we can tell, the soul does exist in creatures before the System arrives. Soul strength's relevance to condensing is that it determines how much of your own soul material you need to use to create a condensed item. The stronger your soul, the more of your own soul material is required to create an identical looking item.

"While this sounds bad, it means that your condensed item will be exponentially stronger than the same item created by someone with a weaker soul, as the soul material generated by the System to assist those with a weak soul is significantly more brittle than normal soul material. This is irrelevant against an image, as even the weakest soul material can come out of an exchange with the strongest image unscathed."

Degritone: Naisu~~ Crazy to think how powerful Patrons are. Would have been entertaining to watch some of the Patron fights during the AT, if I didn't need to spend much of the time either recovering from unconsciousness or working on my Immortal Troll image.

Melena: Indeed, the power of high leveled people with strong, combat-oriented images is terrifying.

Degritone: Meh, just makes me excited for where I'll be with not only images and System stuff, but eventually even Stavch stuff, once we figure a way around Stavch corruption.