To gain was to lose.
At some point, Green had thoroughly grown accustomed to the truth-analysis perception and insight brought by the Face of Truth.
Accustomed to overlooking worlds from the void and seeing their essence as paper-like vessels; accustomed to using layer upon layer of data and energy within a world's outward appearances to deduce and predict future trends; accustomed to seeing life as composed of hundreds of millions upon hundreds of millions of shifting attributes; accustomed to determining relationships from the most minute changes between people; accustomed to breaking sorcery, techniques, creatures, and specimens apart into combinations of energy, matter, and mysterious power...
It was precisely because he had grown accustomed to these things that Green had gradually begun to forget everything real, as though it were merely a hazy memory from the time he had nursed at his mother's breast.
Green had always felt that the Face of Truth, as a witch tool he had designed during his wizard apprentice days, inspired by the Pale Mask, had accompanied him throughout his growth. Though it now possessed all manner of incredible powers of insight—from True-Spirit Sovereigns above to wizard apprentices below, anyone who possessed this witch tool was nearly equivalent to possessing the ability to dissect the true essence of all things—it had countless miraculous uses in growth, learning, and battle alike. Yet no matter how the Face of Truth evolved, it was still one step short.
That step was equivalent to the step of returning to simplicity that transformed a battle knight into a supreme sovereign.
From appearances into truth, from simplicity to complexity—this had been the pursuit of the first twenty stages of the Face of Truth project.
Yet Green knew that if he did not find the correct direction for its evolution, then even if