Location- Sky Blossom City, Card stadium, Arena no.2
A person's Ego Gem is private and personal. This is the sacred temple where his/her spirit is housed to connect with the world. And also the one place where a card apprentice can count on to feel safe, peaceful, and clean of any other disturbance. Like how a social convention dictates that one's birthday suit is one's business and nobody else's business. Making the act of peeping on others' birthday suits to be considered a punishable crime. Similarly, peeking into another person's Ego Gem is considered as seeking death or declaring war in the Card apprentice community.
This I conferred by the amount of hostility shown by Corey and her Ego Fire. Thankfully the Ego fire did not seem to be as unreasonable and unhinged as Corey. The Ego Fire wanted to block me from peeking but it was curious as to why I was able to see and hear normally without actually entering her demon core.
I did not think Corey was overreacting to me peeking into her titled demon core. As I would be equally distributed if someone were to peep into my Calamity Soul Gem. I do not know about Corey but my Calamity Soul Gem is the place where most of my secrets are hidden and would prefer to not have any unwanted peeping Toms, trespassers, or Invaders.
Thankfully I could trust the Calamity soul gem defense with the protection of my mutated soul and mutated spirit from any type of peeking or invasion. Otherwise right now instead of analyzing Corey and her Ego Fire, I would be busy worrying about how to defend myself or stop something like this from happening to me. Fortunately, Dungeon Calamity Seed's shell was meant for this kind of threat and it is best at it.
"Ms. Park, I am sorry but I cannot answer your questions as they involve some of my important secrets. Revealing them is not an option." The Ego Fire was tolerating my presence in her titled demon core so far because she wanted some answers to her questions from me. And yes I was mesmerized by the demonic charm of her devilish body but that did not mean I would foolishly reveal my core secrets which I plan to bury in my grave.
"I understand Mr. Wyatt. Then let me show you out." The Ego Fire seemed to have reached the limit of her tolerance and was in no mood for wordplay with me. Hence seeing me play hard to get she did not bother to negotiate and decided to send me on my way.
"Wait… those secrets are important but that doesn't mean I am not open for negotiations." I hurriedly said stopping the Ego fire from blocking my feed to her title demon core. Seeing her uninterested face I added, "Ms. Park, how about we conduct a transaction? I will answer one of your questions for every one of my questions you answer."
"Oh, I see. I am open to your idea but how do we proceed with your said transaction?" My suggestion of a transaction of answers for others' questions interested the Ego Fire and she withheld the thought of blocking me.
"You, what the heck are you doing babbling with him? Throw him out of here this instant… don't ignore me again, this is an order." Corey seemed to be bothered by my presence in her Titled demon core. She seemed to grow more annoyed and irritated with passing time. 'Don't blame me, I did not want to order you but you kept ignoring me.'
"Just as second Mr. Wyatt" excusing herself the Ego fire dragged Corey farther from me and started a heated conversation.
"Corey... understand… his method of peeping … is more advanced… we need it … will help us."
"... Okay… why here?… ask him outside."
"I can't… outside… you know…"
"Fine… 1 minute … fast ...Send him… out "
...
Gaining Corey's cooperation the Ego Fire returned and looking at me it said, " How do you plan to proceed?"
"As a sign of good faith let me answer a part of your question first and then we take turns in an orderly fashion.
I am able to listen to your conversation without entering your titled demon core because I have soul echolocation, it is a part of my origin card." I had no other option than to answer truthfully because inside the ego gem Ego Elementals are more sensitive to these things, maybe because their connection to the world is stronger here.
Higher the grade of the Ego Gem the more sensitive and easier it is for the Ego elemental to tell whether I am telling the truth inside the ego gem. If the Ego Fire feels I am not being truthful enough I will not be able to find the answer to my questions. So I tried to be enough without touching my core secrets.
"Um… aren't you lucky to have soul echolocation as a part of your origin card. And how is your vision so clear here?" Soul echolocation is a pretty common card among high-grade Card Creationists. What surprised her was that it is a part of my origin card as in my current state I can only utilize my origin card abilities, rules, and runes.
"I will get to it after you answer me. Why do you guys keep referring to this place as the titled demon core?" I need to confirm whether my speculation of this place was correct, that this is a variation of the monster core.
"Um… do you not know demon core and title demon core? But I feel the presence of something similar in your body. Titled demon core is the source of our power, it provides us with our strong physique and ability to comprehend the world." The Ego fire was honest and did not try to be misleading.
"As I suspected. Let me warn you, do not let people here know about your titled demon core. Here we have Ego Gem for what you call titled demon core but it only gives the ability to comprehend the world and not a monstrous physique. Ego Gem is kind of incomplete.
So for your safety, if anyone asks, you answer you have an Ego gem. I think you understand the gravity of this matter. " From what Ego Fire explained, my speculation about the title demon core is correct. But the problem was the ego fire did not know people here did not have titled demon core but an ego gem an incomplete version of it. And did not seem to realize the gravity of this matter. But I decided to remind her as I did not mind having an entity like her owning me a favor.