The echo well sat in front of Saryn, quietly producing a glow rivalling the birth of a universe, albeit countless times smaller. A similar glow rested silently around Saryn's right arm, he placed his left arm inside the well, before willing the aurora in the well to bend around his left arm.
'Don't make this trip for nothing.'
Saryn pleaded inwardly. He didn't know whether he was even allowed or able to keep the echoes from two different wells at the same time.
The echoes in the well rattled slightly, before glowing brighter and pulling themselves toward Saryn's hand.
'Yes!' Joy rose from his heart as he watched the echoes slither up his arm like glowing serpents.
However, upon fully wrapping themselves around his other arm, a sharp pain flashed in Saryn's chest, before an odd feeling arose.
As if his heart had been locked inside a tightening cage.
The imaginary steel of the cage tightened around his heart, making him slightly gasp for air, as the suffocating feeling persisted.
'Two echo fabrics must be my limit.' He concluded, anymore and Saryn would be left completely numb and powerless.
The wave of suffocation certainly bothered him, but it was at most a minor inconvenience, a small trade off in exchange for the strength that came with the second echo fabric.
Saryn turned around upon the successful extraction, looking at his surroundings.
Pure, barren, wasteland.
Nothing more, nothing less, apart from the occasional dead tree, there wasn't much to gawk at. The ground beneath his feet was cracked and scorching hot, unbearable to walk about on, but his divine physique minimized the damage and pain, making it easy to resist.
Saryn looked down at his arms, both covered in nebulae, before turning back up, sighing deeply and advancing toward the central blade.
Another perk he had noticed that came with this physique was his lack of forgetfulness. His memories, every single one, were perfectly clear, which helped him navigate the third floor with relative ease.
He also hadn't noticed any trace of the stalker yet, not since he had first spotted it in the south western forest, and now, even in the south eastern wasteland, there were no fluctuations in the atmospheric echoes, he couldn't pick up on anything hinting the presence of the stalker.
Nor the lilac echo.
'Don't think about that.'
Saryn reminded himself regularly. Just thinking of that singular echo made him intensely hungry, and not exactly for food.
And he could tell why it did. The injection of the serum in the first room has brought upon him drastic changes, including this sort of separate will that was caged in his heart, a will that wasn't his own. It hungered for echoes endlessly, and without them, he would either die or be left immobile and weak. In return, the echoes quenched his thirst, relieved his hunger, and made him immensely powerful. The natural cyan and blue echoes that floated around the atmosphere were attracted to him like he was some sort of echo magnet, and his body passively absorbed them in order to both sustain itself and also to grow stronger.
However, Saryn had noticed something else as well.
Cyan and blue echoes' boosts were merely temporary, they only sustained him and made sure he didn't grow weak, but if he was left in an area, similar to the first room, which was deprived of echoes for a prolonged time, his strength would fade out quickly, and all the boosts he had received from his passive absorption would disappear.
And thus, Saryn made a guess in his mind.
'I think the lilac echoes provide me with permanent boosts in strength, maybe that's also why they are so scarce.'
This idea seemed believable to Saryn, and it was, because he's right. Unlike other humans, echoes are naturally drawn to him due to his unique genetic composition. Two percent of his DNA was that of a sanity beast, sanity beasts being a variant of beasts who are known for their dominance in terms of strength and intelligence, and due to this, echoes were his source of power, they are drawn to him and he is drawn to them. Cyan and blue echoes sustain him, while lilac echoes give him permanent boosts in strength.
Others rampage and go insane under the effects of echo imbalance, but to him, it was harmless. Of course, this doesn't apply to Saryn's rituals as well, the rituals he performs still need balance between echo types in order to succeed, but he himself is resistant to insanity, which is caused by echo imbalance. On the other hand, others would crumble under overuse of semblances, this is because semblances attract and release blue echoes specifically in order to work. The overuse of blue echoes while not having enough cyan echoes in the body to combat the imbalance, ultimately makes the user go insane upon using their semblance too much. So blue echoes are a sort of drug to ritualists, granting them immense strength in return for their sanity, and overuse could turn them into mindless beasts permanently.
Unfortunately, early ritualists didn't know this, because they couldn't see echoes in their natural state, and so, many of them descended into madness from overuse. Only Saryn can see echoes naturally, other people only see them when they have taken a physical form, for example, after they've been molded into an attack by a semblance. Other than Saryn, only ritualists with powerful semblances tailored to specifically allow them to see echoes in their passive state can see them. On the other hand, Saryn's physique grants him the ability to see them naturally.
His body isn't without disadvantage either.
But for now, his advantages are immense over others. Saryn's unique trait of seeing echoes provides him better chances at succeeding in rituals. While others rely on instinct and feeling to prevent failure, he can directly see the density of echoes, and what is needed in order to succeed.
The difference between them?
Like the difference there would be between that of a blind man and a well man.