"There's only one other Aeon who is similar to me."
"Akivili."
Aleph nodded to Herta's words.
"They are unlike most Aeons. Perhaps it is due to their [Path] or personal beliefs. It won't change the fact that Akivili was the closest Aeons to mortals."
"Your [Path] does not look like theirs."
Herta remarked upon noticing the similarities between the two Aeons.
"Trailblazing involves the exploration of the unknown. A journey of sorts. Yours does not look like that."
Hearing her doubts, Aleph gave a rhetoric.
"Aeons are not necessarily the same, no?"
"..."
Her silence fueled his playful side even more.
'No wonder Su loved to be a riddler...'
Keeping others on the edge of their seats was a somewhat twisted pleasure of his. From the moment Aleph began doing it, it was doomed to stick with him for a long time.
"Anyways, I brought you here not just to chat." He stated while pouring tea to the two empty cups. "Care to become my Pathstrider?"
An incredulous thought emerged on Herta's mind.
"...Even when I am following Erudition's [Path]?"
"I mean, why not?"
One of her conjectures were verified again:
The Aeon of Perpetuity works differently from other Aeons.
The question of "how different" he was follows.
She found him staring at her while holding the teacup. While he drank, Herta was given her answer.
"My [Path] works differently from others. You can follow it even when treading another [Path]."
Aleph finished drinking from the teacup and placed it down the saucer. His reflection as a being made of indescribable light flickered on its surface.
"Perpetuity bears the ability to become unchanging, though it is open to all interpretations. It could be similar to Permanence's eternal cycle, Qlipoth's undying will to protect, Nihility's never-ending pursuit of meaninglessness… But of course, these are all but possible interpretations of it."
It was unknown when a childish version of Herta stood beside Aleph.
"How did you come up with making puppets of your younger self?"
He got a response to his seemingly random question.
"Everyone got curious about my past self. I gave them the chance to glance at it."
"That's pretty narcissistic. Haven't Idrilla gazed at you?"
"No."
Thinking of this, Herta showed slight dissatisfaction for the first time. Aleph saw this and couldn't help but laugh.
"Don't waste your brainpower on it. Idrilla is dead."
"..."
It was one of the straight-up told facts even in the game Aleph played. The end of Knight of Beauty's pursuit over the missing Idrilla ended up in the discovery of their death.
"At least for now."
Aleph told Herta everything about Idrilla, the Aeon of Beauty.
"Aeons typically do not die. Assimilation of other [Paths] guarantees it, but in select cases, it's not. The same goes for Long."
The rest that followed filled up the blanks regarding how different Perpetuity was.
In most cases, [Paths] of similar nature ends up in a clash—an assimilation of sorts. The stronger one wins while the weaker one gets assimilated, thus resulting in "true death".
Long of Permanence overlaps with the Perpetuity Aleph holds.
"They are pretty much alive. I chose not to assimilate with them because, well, they didn't do anything wrong."
"Huh."
This conversation was a novel experience for Herta. The mere idea of an Aeon conversing like a human was something only recorded during Akivili's time—a long time ago.
Droidhead themselves chooses to snob Herta. The latter felt somewhat incredulous that one of her goals were achieved just like that.
It seemed like everything went well. Herta was free to ask questions that were soon answered by Aleph.
She only asked five questions, however.
A genius' confidence? Perhaps.
"What is your interpretation, then?"
Despite all sorts of cognition distortion and word traps in the form of random questions, Herta did not miss out the main point they were talking about earlier. This was, after all, one of the five questions she asked.
Clang.
Aleph placed the teacup into the saucer for the nth time. The tea inside it rippled. Vague images could be seen from it—images of Herta's past experiences.
It caused her to look up at him, finally noticing the strangeness behind his eyes. It gave off a similar aura as Nous' all-knowing gaze.
"What does it mean to live?"
"How can perpetuity relate to it?"
Before she could respond, the rippling in the teacup caught her eyes.
Herta saw complex images from it.
A dragon.
A black hole.
A purple sphere.
A door.
It stopped changing when the last image came.
"We will meet again."
That was the last thing she heard before being ejected from this space.
*****
Aleph opened his eyes. A smile was placed on his lips.
"So it's the Door and Finality. No wonder."
When he became an official Aeon, it was covered up by the imaginary barrier around Earth. Only when he revealed his True Form in this universe was he formally acknowledged.
It was at this moment did Aleph perform the duties of an Aeon.
One of them was the propagation of his Path. Countless living beings will have the chance to contact it.
To avoid any kind of mess, he decided to create a set of standards for choosing his Pathstriders.
'The will to keep one's self, to move forward, and to find the best version of themselves.'
The selection will be automatically done by his Path.
Next was the space where the selected ones were sent. Nihility has the Horizon of Existence. These spaces were their signature spaces, so as to speak.
'Realm of Infinite Light. It's a cool enough name.'
Aleph decided on a concept first before building the said space. The authority of [Door] allowed for the creation of special spaces, and so did [World]. When the two were combined under [Infinity], it resulted in a special space entered by Herta.
Finally, there was the meeting. Every living being capable of being screened using Aleph's standards will have a conversation with him. Manipulating thousands of projections at once was not difficult with the current Aleph, more so when Metatron helps him shoulder the burden.
It was in this meeting will the authorities be bestowed upon them. It could be any of the six authorities under Infinity.
After that, they would then begin their lives as his Pathstriders. The rest follows the mechanisms established by Aeons, such as the gradual increase of the authorities they wield as they become more fit with the Path they chose.
Thinking of his conversation with Herta, he wore a wry smile.
"I should be careful with her…"
Herta was the person who would pester all sorts of Aeons. Although, most of them snobbed her in the Simulated Universe. It was through this project that her personality as a persistent troublemaker-slash-narcissistic genius researcher was established in the game he knew.
She would not even give Nous a break, in turn making them fall completely silent.
Herta was one of the few unique characters in this universe who held little to no fear to Aeons when it came to satisfying her curiosity.
After a while, Aleph stopped fooling himself.
"She's just as persistent as Mobius."
He brooded over the fact that he might have shot himself in the foot this time.