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Hector needed another few moments to think.

Man. If Garovel could actually see everything that he did just now, then that had some pretty serious implications, didn’t it? For one thing, it meant that, in all likelihood, Garovel would be able to interact with the Gate’s functionality as a soul compass.

And Garovel had a ton of souls memorized. Even if no other reapers could harness the Gate’s power like that--which wasn’t certain yet at all--then that would still open up quite a few possibilities for them, wouldn’t it?

Weren’t there some very important people out there that they would like to track down?

And not just allies, either. This thing could theoretically give them a much clearer picture of their enemies’ movements.

Such as Bloodeye.

They’d certainly met that motherfucker before. The clash at the Lorent-Callum border, when they’d rescued Hahl Saqqaf.

Hector decided to take a moment to explain everything he’d just learned to Garovel. He was a little afraid of getting sidetracked from their current objective, but this, at least, seemed like it wouldn’t take very long. Plus, being able to confirm that Bloodeye had indeed crossed into Intar was tremendously relevant to the mission.

In a background thought process, however, Hector was already assessing what other needs they might have for this soul compass. It seemed to him that this was a going to be a very important tool.

Three missing Elroy children? Hundreds of scattered Sandlords? One of whom was known to be carrying Ivan’s head? Royo Raju and Malast? The Hun’Sho of Himmekel, too? Hector and Garovel had been concerned about their well-being, wondering if Royo had done them any harm.

Not to mention, Prince David. His whereabouts were slightly worrying, also. Might not hurt to check on him real quick, even if only to confirm that he was where he said he was.

That was all way too much to dive into, right now. And yet it was all feeling quite urgent, as well.

So they tried to conduct a few experiments. First attempts. With Garovel and the Core’s assistance, Hector harnessed the soul compass immediately.

The world of lights returned, this time while Hector was touching the Gate directly.

But it was surprisingly difficult to navigate.

Hector had hoped that the Core would make it easy, but that wasn’t to be, it seemed. There was definitely a learning curve here, at least. The main reason seemed to be understanding the relative positions of himself and the target person. Finding the desired soul among the ocean of others was indeed trivial, but actually comprehending the location was not.