Working with the source was different from working alone in a specific way he hadn't anticipated.
Not easier. The pool cost per segment held steady—the degraded contacts in the water-eroded substrate were genuinely harder to work with than intact ancient stages, and no amount of guidance changed the physical cost of building through worn material. But faster. The source knew every degraded contact surface in the substrate the way someone knew their own house in the dark: by placement and feel, without needing to stop and check. He set the anchor. The source showed him the path. He built.
There was a specific quality to work done with someone who knew the terrain. Less decision time. More movement. The gap between starting a segment and setting it was shorter because none of that time went to navigation.
Four segments on the first day. Better than any first day in the western builds.
Days two through four.
