The first thing Ryan found, to his mild disappointment, was that none of the Instigator's new abilities directly boosted combat power.
The Instigator's three core abilities were: Charm, Mislead, and Persuade.
Possibly because all three served the same purpose — instigation — the Charm ability was nothing like the seduction techniques described in the cultivation novels he'd read. It was considerably more restrained.
The Instigator's Charm worked by expending spiritual power to briefly enhance the Instigator's charisma and bearing, making them more naturally trustworthy and easier to approach. It lowered the target's guard and resistance, and improved the success rate of both Mislead and Persuade.
Mislead, meanwhile, allowed the Instigator to spend spiritual power while speaking, causing their words to quietly draw out the darkest impulses and desires in each listener. The effect didn't just erode an individual's respect for rules and morality — it made them feel that everyone around them was equally compromised, leaving them suspicious, irritable, and incapable of basic trust.
Even if the Instigator said nothing technically false and included no overt suggestions or prompts, people who heard them speak would find themselves unconsciously developing extreme and irrational views.
The more spiritual power expended, the more people the Instigator could affect simultaneously — provided those people could hear the Instigator speaking.
Persuade, finally, spent spiritual power to give the Instigator a general sense of the other person's thoughts mid-conversation. The details remained unclear, but the effect meant that people talking with an Instigator often felt an uncanny sense of being deeply understood — which made them significantly more receptive to the Instigator's views.
If the target had already been affected by Mislead and had developed considerable trust in the Instigator, Persuade could go further, eroding the target's ability to evaluate facts independently until they effectively accepted everything the Instigator said at face value. At that point, the Instigator could alter someone's personality or drive them to behavior that would otherwise be unthinkable — estrangements, betrayals, rifts that might never have happened — with nothing more than a few carefully chosen words.
"Sounds fairly powerful." Ryan concluded.
With his accumulated experience in games and fiction, he could readily imagine the limitations the formula hadn't mentioned but which almost certainly existed: probably ineffective against someone who was already openly hostile; presumably less effective the higher the target's Sequence; likely weaker against people with strong moral character; and probably capable of backfiring if the suggestion was too implausible, alerting the target and causing the ability to fail.
The specifics would require practical testing.
On the physical side, the Instigator potion had also improved Ryan's body across the board — though only by roughly as much as the Assassin potion had improved his strength: noticeable, but not dramatic.
According to the potion's accompanying knowledge, the Instigator primarily enhanced intellect and observational ability, and made the Instigator acutely sensitive to facial expressions, emotional states, and subtle psychological shifts. Combined with the knowledge of micro-expressions and psychology that came bundled with the potion, drinking a single dose effectively maxed out a person's social capabilities.
And the boost to intelligence seemed significant enough. Even in the first few minutes, Ryan noticed his thoughts moving more quickly than before — which led almost immediately to the realization that Mislead could apparently be used against enemies, functioning as a kind of provocation effect.
The Assassin potion's Extraordinary abilities, on the other hand, hadn't felt noticeably stronger yet.
Having taken stock of his changes, Ryan began tidying the room while thinking through his next steps.
When he actually considered it, not much had changed from before. Just as he'd neutralized the Assassin potion's influence by acting like an Assassin, he'd do the same with the Instigator — despite the name's negative connotation, using it on genuinely bad people was simply allowing bad things to happen to people who deserved them. The main difference was that instigation required conversation, which made it easier for the Church to track than assassination. He'd need to be more careful.
His options for earning money were broader now — but given the risks involved, he'd stay in the same lane: targeting people and operations that existed outside legal protection.
He could also start looking for mysticism texts to read, and ask questions whenever he came to return money to the dangerous woman. Having access to an expert who answered questions for free was a resource worth using.
He counted what he had on hand: seventeen pounds, sixteen sous, and five pence — with the hundred and fifty pounds still in the bank at Birkoff.
Not much, but for someone living alone with no particular hobbies, it was enough for about seven weeks. Food was the biggest expense — even without deliberately eating well, his current body ran through nearly thirty pence a day just to maintain itself.
"Not much, but enough to go out and celebrate with something I haven't tried yet."
It wasn't mealtime, strictly speaking, but nothing stopped him from making this decision cheerfully. He had no other way to celebrate — as someone entirely indifferent to exercise and art, and living in an era with very little entertainment that held any interest for him, he'd already been debating whether to take up fishing or learn to cook.
He stepped outside, made his usual circuit out of habit, and confirmed via the Tasok River's surface that he had not become even slightly better-looking. Even with the Instigator's Charm active, the effect was only the feeling of looking somewhat better.
Looking at his own frame in the reflection, Ryan concluded that earning people's trust was going to be meaningfully harder for him than for most Instigators.
After finishing dinner — two sous total — he was still out walking when, at a street corner, he happened to catch a momentary glance from Edith in the shadows above. She gave a small wave and vanished.
At higher Sequences, does Charm become a passive ability? There's no other explanation for a hand-wave giving me the impression of a secret rendezvous...
He also found the timing slightly odd. Edith had always been careful — she never mentioned anything about herself, gave him no way to contact her, and spaced their meetings at least three or four days apart. He'd expected to wait before she appeared. He hadn't expected to run into her the same evening.
Ryan continued down the street as though he'd seen nothing, checked that nothing seemed off, then gradually stepped out of the main flow of pedestrians and into a sheltered corner.
"Good evening, Mister Instigator. Congratulations again on your advancement." Edith stepped out of the shadows, with a light smile.
Her clothes and expression were unchanged from the afternoon. But Ryan — now Sequence 8 — caught something in her voice and smile that he hadn't been able to place before. Satisfaction. The kind that seemed entirely unconnected to him.
This contentment doesn't seem to be about me.
"I owe that to your help. Also — is something going on, Miss Edith?"
"Nothing serious. I simply forgot a few things this afternoon and left in too much of a hurry — so I've come to cover them now. Knowledge I should have shared with you the moment you advanced."
She noted his faint surprise and explained.
"You aren't yet a member of our organization — but we're still happy to share the experience our members have accumulated at the Instigator stage, to help you through Sequence 8 more smoothly. It also reduces the risk of losing a potential member."
Ryan nodded, then asked something that had been sitting with him.
"Miss Edith — I've been curious for a while. Is everyone in your organization an Assassin? No other Extraordinaires at all?"
"Every member follows the Assassin Sequence path. An organization where members come from many different Sequence paths and all hold significant standing within it — I've genuinely never seen one."
"Why is that, Miss Edith?"