The dark took Ainen the same way it had taken Rudra, without ceremony, and when it let him see again he was standing in the same small grey room, five glowing tiles hovering at chest height.
[Choose one deck to rebuild. This process cannot be reversed.]
Slow Reduction. Feast Golem. Communal Feast. Spiceweave. Cellar Aged.
He didn't need long to decide. He'd known which one he was choosing since the moment a woman with two blades that never held the same temperature twice had beaten him in front of a few thousand strangers by simply refusing to give him time.
"Slow Reduction," he said aloud, tasting the name the way he tasted everything, and touched the tile.
[Slow Reduction: erased.]
The tile crumbled to grey dust, and for a moment Ainen felt the small, strange absence of the very first real technique he'd ever built, gone as completely as if he'd never learned patience at all.
