After marveling at the wonders of Deep Layer life, Kraft turned his attention back to the Black Salt he was using as a measuring standard.
Under the High-Power Lens, the nearest tiny grain of Black Salt seemed, possibly, maybe, perhaps, to be starting to melt. Its edges had become just a little less sharp.
The visual difference was far less obvious than the change he sensed. It was as if he felt something had changed first, then noticed the subtle difference in its outline only after looking closely—so slight that it was hard to distinguish from the distortion caused by staring too long.
Scaled up proportionally, it would take a Deep Layer entity about as big as a Crawling Creature transforming through an entire biological version of a Transformers sequence in the room just to make a small bottle of Black Salt in the next room show signs of melting. Even the most sharp-eared musician wouldn't be able to shake the bottle and hear a difference.
Kraft returned to the chair in the corner of the room and waited through five turns of the Hourglass Flip Time before taking another look.
Perhaps the sample had stopped melting because it had undergone no further changes. Or perhaps it had never started in the first place.
To show the weaker effects of the Deep Layer through changes in Black Salt, he would probably need a high-powered microscope. As for getting someone to stare at Black Salt under a microscope all day, it was obvious that would be anything but safe.
The water in the sink was gradually cooling, going from hot enough to soften flatbread to a temperature suitable for brushing teeth.
As usual, the sample keenly sensed the environmental change. It split open the egg-membrane-like layer of keratin with a relatively