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The island nation and the arcanaeum of Oceanside were named the same, because to call them differently was only something that natives did. To all the world, Oceanside was Oceanside. To Erick, Oceanside was the home of a friend, and, in a way, his alma mater, though he had only ever spent a semester here. That semester had been enough to teach him everything he wanted to know at the time, and it had been enough to be awarded an honorary diploma years after that attendance, well after Erick had become the Apparent King, during one of the calmer years.

Everyone had attended that award ceremony, and it had been a great time, though apparently Erick had been ‘not all there’ for he had been stuck in an [Onward] for a while. Erick still recalled that time fondly. The Headmaster had decorated the tall off-white pillar towers of the arcanaeum and the lightward roadways in the air with lines of black and white, but mostly white, in honor of the Apparent King.

But privately, Kirginatharp had told Erick that he wanted Melemizargo and his Shades nowhere near the Arcanaeum for that celebration, and so Erick had sent Goldie away, and told the rest to leave. Healing from wounds 1450 years in the making was not an easy thing.

And now there were new wounds, added just last week.

The wounds of the truth of Idyrvamikor as an agent of Nothanganathor, and of how the Erased One had used Kirginatharp to shape the world to his liking, through the Dragon Curse. Because of that, Kirginatharp was already stepping down from many of his responsibilities, but he was still the Second of Rozeta. He still had pull, and especially here, at his arcanaeum, at this center of learning for all of Veird.

The sun set in the sky to the west, beyond the ocean, and yet that wasn’t the sun and that wasn’t the sky at all. It was an illusion with a weaker sort of light. The sky was not nearly as orange and gold as it used to be.

It was not how it looked that one time, long ago, when Erick had met Kirginatharp for dinner with Jane, here at the Azure Room, and discussed [Duplicate]. The sky might have been different, but the crescent harbor of Oceanside looked the same, and the restaurant hadn’t changed at all, here on the northern side of the main city.

Erick stepped into a foyer where everything was blue opulence. Sapphire chandeliers adorned with white wardlights, blue vases sitting atop cream-colored plinths. Lifelike paintings of ocean life occupied central positions on the walls, and a large staircase of blue stone led up from the foyer to the blue-crystal double doors to the restaurant. The doors were already open. Soft music flowed into the foyer, along with the scent of good food to come. It was bready and spicy and meaty, and wonderful.

A pair of Cooks stood to the left, at the top of the staircase, wearing immaculate white uniforms, while the host for the evening wore a brilliant blue uniform and stood to the other side of the entrance. Erick had [Reincarnation]ed the Cooks into their current forms 8 years ago, and the host had a request on file for the same treatment. He’d probably get that treatment fulfilled, as soon as Erick set up the automatic [Reincarnation] machines at the House.

Erick’s white and silver glowthread clothes swished around him like a proper wizard’s robes, matching the décor of the room but with a different sort of opulence, almost alien in nature. It was the best thing that Erick owned, and so he decided to wear it for the night.

Erick strode forward, up the blue stone staircase.

The goldscale waiter bowed, saying, “Welcome, Wizard Flatt. The Headmaster awaits your arrival.”

Erick smiled a little at that, and then he walked down the stairs into the next room, where almost every table had been cleared away, save one. A 200 degree span of windows showed the western sky and the northern wing of the crescent harbor of Oceanside, while blue gems encrusted the ceiling and chandeliers dripped with sparkle, and a nice, comfortable table and chair set held in the middle of the room.

Kirginatharp sat on the left chair, though he stood upon seeing Erick. He was wearing the gold and white glowthread robes that Erick had brought him; they were like his normal robes, but made of otherworldly material. His expression was one of quiet concern, hidden behind a larger joy. He was every bit the image of a Chinese emperor greeting an old friend.

Despite being a dragon, the Headmaster did not wear his horns openly, and he was only his normal 170 centimeter height. Erick had chosen to put away his own horns and height for the night, so he was only a little bit taller than Kirginatharp right now.

Kirginatharp said, “Hello, Erick. Power looks good on you.”

Erick chuckled at the ice breaker. They hadn’t seen each other in two years, and a whole lot had happened in that amount of time. More than should have happened, really.

Erick easily said, “Looks good on you, too! If you want more of those clothes I think my daughters and son are having some success weaving glowthread. The wild spiders won’t be making anything for a good century, though.”

Kirginatharp grinned softly, touching the voluminous sleeve of his robes, the glowthread moving like water before settling back down to gravity’s draw. “It is a rather marvelous thread.”

The two friends sat without one of them needing to invite the other to do so, and conversation came easier than Erick thought it would. There was lots to talk about. The food was fantastic.

Halfway through the dinner, Kirginatharp changed the subject to deeper matters, casually saying, “I can’t be [Reincarnation]ed right now, Erick, to eliminate the Dragon Curse. I would lose all of my power. My longstanding denouncement of the Forever War has angered too many of the angels and demons, and there are certain elements of their nations which have already threatened to murder me if I am weakened. There’s 4 billion of them, too. The only thing stopping them from taking over the world is their own war with each other, and the threat of Nothanganathor out there.”

Erick nodded. “That’s fine. I do want to eliminate the Dragon Curse soon, though. Whenever we can. The elimination of that Curse would eliminate one of the longstanding ways in which Nothanganathor can threaten this world, and we could use those Free dragons in Ar’Cosmos as warriors against the Red, once they are able to move around freely without desiring to kill each other on sight.” Erick added, “Whenever this can be done, I want to do it, and I will protect you afterward, Kirginatharp.”

Kirginatharp chuckled. “There’s no protecting me if I were to lose power.”

Those small words had said a great deal.

“There’s a different option we could try rather than the direct fight against the Dragon Curse,” Erick said, “You could pick an ally to become Second to Rozeta and the Dragon Curse could spread to them instead, and then I could cure it from them.”

Kirginatharp shook his head a little, saying, “There are no True Dragons out there which could threaten my hold as Second to Rozeta. You’re completely immune and outside of the running for Second because of too many ways to list. This ‘Shadow’ person is right out for a different list of reasons, with only partial overlap as your own. The only one close to Second is Solomon, and he’s half-Paradoxed, so he’s out of the running, too. I have no allies among the Free dragons of Ar’Cosmos.”

“How about someone you could take a dive for?” Erick offered, “Or someone you can raise up to Second? Anyone would do, Kirginatharp.”

Kirginatharp shook his head a little, though he was thinking…

“Something to think about, anyway,” Erick moved on, “So what’s this about the Angels and Demons threatening you?”

The topic was easy enough to slide into, for Kirginatharp readily began, “They’ve usurped the entire religious underpinning of Veird in multiple ways. The Erasure of half of our original population is a small part of the problem. Mostly, the issues stem from the introduction of a million or more thousand-year-old monsters of dubious morality, all of them with a heavy penchant for psychological, proxy warfare that they have honed through the Quiet War over their long afterlives. The basic soldiers on both sides are pretty much just people, but the ones in charge… Well you know the Viridian King of Greensoil, Darundi Raivo. They’re all like him. The current Crown of the Host was from Greensoil. Almost all of those in power among the Angels were from there, too.” Kirginatharp said, “I appreciate what Solomon did for us a lot more than the average person, but he also caused a great deal of problems in saving those afterlives.”

Erick nodded. “I hear he’s annihilated several warfronts, alongside Avandrasolaro.”

“They do what they can but it simply isn’t enough when it comes to the self-reviving Angels and Demons.” Kirginatharp said, “Solomon and Avandrasolaro haven’t engaged in any soul sundering, but the Angels and Demons are doing enough of that to each other when they can, and anyone else who steps into those wars with those weapons are rapidly cut down by both sides. I’d call the Angelic/Demonic cooperation a miracle if they didn’t go right back to trying to kill each other, sometimes right on the battlefields that they had cooperated in to kill the outsiders.”

A server dished out more wine, and brought another course. This one was braised monstrous cow ribs, each a meter long and thick with meat. They were delicious, and heavily spiced with bluebell. Erick had missed that common spice; those tiny blue flowers were kinda wonderful, giving the meat an outdoorsy, wild-ish sort of taste, that was so distinctly ‘bluebell’, and hard to put into other sorts of terms. Also kinda floral and sweet.

After finishing off a rib, thinking all the while, Erick said, “I’m attempting to get some peace treaties signed, but I have met some significant blocks. Can you get the Demon King or the Crown of the Host to actually answer your requests to talk?”

Kirginatharp shook his head. “Haven’t been able to do that in a very long time. They’re Prime Gods now, you know. 2 billion followers will do that, and then you have the other 2 billion followers of the other god, polluting the divine waters with levels of hate that inspire true zealotry. As large as this world is, it is too small for the both of them. Many of the others have gotten some power back as well, for every angel and demon was originally a person— That’s probably why Sininindi survived at all…”

The conversation moved to nuance and intrigue, and the dinner continued well on into the night.

Erick still occasionally worked as he and Kirginatharp shared a meal and conversation, but it was magic done through tiny portals to the left of the dinner and not out in the open at all. House Benevolence was rather good about bringing things to his attention without needing to actually talk to him; Zolan would just set reports onto a desk and Erick would get done whatever needed to be done. Usually it was just signing paperwork, or porting a threatening letter directly onto someone’s desk to get them to stop whatever it was they were doing. Little things.

At the end of the dinner, Erick said, “Sorry for needing to work as we spoke.”

Kirginatharp smiled softly. “You’ve come a long way, Erick. Far beyond me. I’m just some administrator, now, who is mostly retired, and by necessity. You’ve earned the right to work while relaxing, if you want.” Kirginatharp said, “When this is all over, and if you were a normal person, I would wish you luck in finding some time to actually relax, but that’s just not you.”

Erick chuckled.

Kirginatharp nodded, glad his tease had landed properly.

Erick said, “It was great to see you again, Kirginatharp. Thanks for the dinner.”

“Least I could do for all you have done,” Kirginatharp said, “And when I can give you some good news on the Dragon Curse business, I will do so.”

“It’s not your fault. You were used. I was used, too.”

Kirginatharp let out an exhausted chuckle. “That’s putting it lightly.”

- - - -

“So what is Genesis?” Solomon rhetorically asked. “It’s the solidification of possibility into reality.”

Erick looked at the man. “That tells me nothing.”

Solomon laughed in a happy sort of way. He was looking pretty good these days. With a grey beard and hair and the body of a fit 50 year old man, and yet the face of a much older man, Solomon looked older than he was by far. The stress of the changing world was getting to him. It was getting to Erick, too, but Erick was Ascended, and Solomon was not. Not really.

He was doing some sort of ‘cooperative cultivation thing’ with a bunch of side realities, but even he didn’t really understand that; he didn’t really know what he had done that Day of Genesis, over 2 years ago, when he made Fenrir and the shells of Veird. Or at least that’s what Erick had been able to piece together since he had come back to Veird.

Erick didn’t push that line of inquiry just yet. Maybe he would, soon.

Erick was finally able to sit down with Solomon a little over a week after the Shelter went around Veird and the sky stopped spinning. It was not a calm sort of meeting. Even this little bit of time would need to be taken quickly, for as soon as something resembling peace had returned to Veird there had been emergency after emergency, from ten thousand different corners of the world. Everyone had stuff that they needed done right now, because everything was falling apart. From food supplies to hospitals in need of healers to 2-year-old tragedies that no one had been able to work on until now, the world was healing just a little, and in that healing, problems appeared.

Erick’s meeting with Kirginatharp the other day had been about the only calm time Erick had had since the Shelter went up, and even that hadn’t been too calm.

Solomon was similarly busy. He was on the Worldly Path, too, and had been for a while. Solomon’s Wizardly apotheosis had certainly happened on that Day of Genesis, and he was a Wizard in truth, but then the world had clawed at him in so many different ways…

Erick was still understanding all of those different ways.

Erick was here at the Black Castle of Solomon to talk with his brother about Genesis, and probably other topics. This meeting was kinda tense. It had started off okay, but then it sort of… got here, to Solomon giving Erick a non-answer about Genesis.

It was a sensitive topic, apparently.

Erick pulled back. “I don’t think I’ve asked you how you’re doing yet, Solomon. Not truly. I’ve been busy. Sorry about that.”

Solomon huffed a laugh as he shook his head a little. “Thank you for the concern, but I am doing fine. Destiny and I married six months ago, you know?”

Erick’s eyes went wide. “No, I did not know that!” He smiled wide. “That’s great! Congrat—” Erick’s brief happiness for the man faltered hard. “No one knows except for you two and Poi.”

Solomon laughed a bit more freely, that time. “I’m sure a few others know. Poi officiated. The wedding was small and private, but it wasn’t meant to be as small as it ended up being. We sent out a few invites, but every single one was lost in the mail and somehow all the people spying on me all the time didn’t get the memo that way, either. It wasn’t until a week later with me being furious at… at a lot of people, that we went investigating. The mail room at the House was attacked by the Red, and the letters never made it out.” Solomon waved a dismissive hand. “Destiny and I decided that we’ll have a bigger wedding when this war is over, and this time the letters won’t get lost. You’re invited, of course.”

“I will be there with the best gifts I can possibly make. I have to figure out those gifts first, but I look forward to the wedding!”

Solomon smiled softly. “Thank you… Anyway! You are asking about Genesis...”

He held up a hand. Glittering silver mana flowed like a river out of his palm, shaping itself into countless small things, from a tiny sword to a snow globe to a mirror to a thousand little items and even faces and arms and eyes, and none of that at all. The silver mana flowed over those images, briefly showing it as those things, before it flowed away into the air, to spread images and lost intent into the manasphere.

It sounded like the joy of Christmas without any of the normal sounds Erick would have associated with that time of the year, back on Earth. Maybe the tiny chime of a bell? Hard to say. It was more of a feeling than any real sound, anyway.

Solomon said, “Genesis is possibility. I have yet to find Debby in the possibility, but I had a small talk with Fairy Moon the other day.” Solomon closed his palm, and the chiming sound of Genesis winked out in the shaping of a fist. “She had some small words for me that almost sparked something... It felt so familiar, like coming back to a house and finding other people have moved stuff around and the light switch wasn’t where it had been for 15 years. I’m walking a Path I already walked, but differently.”

Erick felt his own Lightning Path moving erratically.

Many paths lay ahead.

Erick chose to simply acknowledge the surreality happening to Solomon. “Yup. You are.”

Solomon raised an eyebrow, and then he laughed. He smiled, and said, “Yup.” And then he breathed deep, and asked, “Can you touch Genesis at all, not being connected to the Script? I’d imagine not actually being passively exposed to the mana would fuck up any attempts to copy what you’ve never touched before.”

Erick raised an eyebrow.

He had tried, in a halfhearted manner, to use Genesis. Nothing had happened back in those attempts, and so Erick was here.

“Genesis is difficult,” Erick said, as he held up a hand and brought forth the lightning crackle of Benevolence. He moved his fingers, trying to Alter the Element into something else. He rapidly moved through most every Element he knew. “As in Genesis seems beyond me.” He said, “Maybe I do need to actually be exposed to it, like you said, and Mana Siphon wouldn’t work for that, due to the conversion aspects of that Ability… I suppose I should try ambient mana gathering, too. Have you done anything with ambient mana?”

“I tried it.” Solomon nodded. “Ended up poorly. There’s been Malevolence in the air, but that is only half of the problem. The only person who actually uses atmospheric mana well is Syllea Wyrmrest, and only when she’s Raging. She and I had a discussion about this a while ago, when there were some attacks here and there and both of us needed more mana. Apparently it kills her to use atmospheric mana, but she survives because she is Raging and nigh-unkillable. There were a few others that could use atmospheric mana, and they were either all orcols who did it only as a last resort, or they only used atmospheric mana once and then never again… also as a last resort.”

Erick nodded. “Whelp. Let’s try it! Can you flood the room with Genesis?”

Solomon smirked. “Let’s start with this.”

Solomon held up his hands in front of him as though gripping a steering wheel, and then he released mana in a controlled ring of power that flowed out from one hand like silver charms, clinking and chiming as they went, before falling into the grip of his other hand, where those charms became the lightning-light flow of Benevolence. Solomon continued the circuit around the wheel, where Benevolence rejoined Genesis, and the crackling path of lightning became the flow of tinkling chimes.

The real show was happening in Solomon’s aura, at the juncture of his palms and the tube.

Erick watched as Solomon let mana out of himself, into a controlled ring of aura, where it became ambient mana, and then he absorbed that mana back into himself, before spitting it out again. Whatever was happening at the points of his hands was…

“Remarkable,” Erick said, studying what he was seeing. “This is a neat method of training how to reabsorb spent mana, too.”

Solomon breathed easy, but he looked like he was holding up a weight of some measure as he continued to cycle the mana like this. And then some shards of mana formed in his hands, inside of his flesh, like crystallized needles. Where he had released the Benevolence and absorbed the Genesis, there were tiny silver needles, like asbestos filaments. Where he had released the Genesis and absorbed the Benevolence, there were larger needles made of white crystal. He shook out his hands, pushing the crystals out of his skin. Only the largest crystals clinked to the floor. Most of the fragments merely dissipated, as mana crystals often did.

Solomon said, “That’s a lot more tiring than it looks and there’s more to it than what I appear to be doing, but that’s most of it.”

“You’re better at reabsorbing Genesis than you are at reabsorbing Benevolence.”

“I might have started off as Benevolence flavored, but that changed a lot. My dragon coloring is still black—” He brought his black horns out and tapped them. And then he put them away. “But all my mana is silver colored. Destiny likes to call it ‘platinum’. I think she heard that I like that color better than ‘silver’ once, and now she uses ‘platinum’ everywhere.”

Erick smiled. “Rather charming of her.”

Solomon laughed. “I’m not sure where the charms came from. They sort of just happened. I think they’re the focuses of all the side-Ericks who ‘collectively cultivated’ with me during the Day of Genesis. They’re the things they want the most, or even just passing fancies. Or the things they want back. Most of the charms are people. Only a few of them look like Jane. Vanishingly few, really.”

Erick nodded slowly, hearing the hidden concern in Solomon’s voice.

Erick thought for a moment.

He rapidly decided he couldn’t help Solomon with Debby, because that would be the wrong thing to do, for Fairy Moon was good at this and Erick… Well. He could try. But a lot of things were telling him that he didn’t need to help in this way, and to try to help was to test Fate too much...

Erick simply asked Solomon, “Are you happy with what Fairy Moon is doing to help guide you?”

Solomon flinched. “… Mostly. It’s concerning, of course, for a lot of reasons I am still digesting. Your curated manual cleared up a lot of weirdness with what Wizardry is, or could be, and the Day of Clouds made Wizardry available again, which has helped even more than that… But let’s move on.” Solomon said, “I assume, with billions of mana to your name, that you need to do a much bigger circle of cycling than I did in order to actually see your numbers shift in any meaningful way.”

“Oh yeah. Let’s see...”

Erick dove into himself, switched a few things around in his Status, and brought up his actual, full mana numbers. He was currently at 7,198,342,189 mana, and that number was going up by 1,505 per second. He was going to need to do a great big expulsion/re-absorption in order to see any change in those numbers at all.

Erick came back to himself, saying, “7 billion mana, so yeah. I would need to make a very large… Hmm. Have you tried absorbing with just your aura? Why do you use your flesh and the surface of Health to reabsorb the ambient mana?”

“So that the mana shards don’t go all the way into my soul. Health makes a nice barrier to add to mana.” Solomon shrugged. “But if you’re using Health as mana, it’s easier to use Blood Mana and some Healing Magics to restore extra mana. Ambient mana absorption is only really useful when you have no Health left and you can easily heal the damage.”

Erick said, “Can you do the cycling again? Explaining the whole thing?”

Solomon held his hands like he was holding a steering wheel again, and then he created a circular, solid wheel of controlled aura. He widened the center of that circle, to make it a tube, releasing mana from both of his hands to do so, creating a space of ambient mana that was already his own mana.

Solomon said, “That’s the easy part, and it looks like you got it.”

“Tube of aura that you fill with your own mana, thus removing the complication of using actual ambient mana, while still providing a difficulty of ‘intent-dead’ mana to reabsorb.”

“Yup.” Solomon said, “And now, I expel Genesis with one hand and Altered Benevolence with the other, flowing them through the tube in a circle, using Elemental Mystical at the edges of my palm, inside of my body, to direct the flow, and to absorb the flow. The Mystical is there to bridge gaps and to ‘induct’ the now-ambient mana back into my body, convincing the ambient that it is real. You can do it with some [Renew] framework if you wish, and I suggest you try that first, and concentrate only on the Benevolence in the air, but that is only useful for throwing out your own mana and bringing it back to you.

“Doing it that way is just as hard as doing it this way, though.

“Much of the Benevolence of this world is not actually yours anymore, anyway; it is what we seeded here among the other people. In a complete mana vacuum, maybe such a ‘recycled mana ability’ would be useful, and it is; like on the various low-mana-density floors of Atunir’s Glittering Depths in Greendale in the Greensoil Republic, or in space. But we’re not in a mana vacuum, and Malevolence hides everywhere.

“Maybe you can make an Ability that allows you to throw out spellwork and then reabsorb that mana you threw out there, at the cost of… resons? Or something? I’m not sure.”

There was a lot there.

Solomon continued, “Anyway, you can try to make the Renew-shape with your hand and a tube, because gods know I tried that the first time and it worked okay, but it doesn’t actually help. Or at least it doesn’t help me. Perhaps, if I was still Benevolence, it would, but I’m not Benevolence anymore.

“And you’re not trying to reabsorb Benevolence; you’re trying to get some Genesis and use that, which requires you to have experienced Genesis from taking it from the environment.”

Solomon stopped.

Erick had a long think.

Solomon watched. “Want to just Mana Siphon some Genesis from me?”

“No,” Erick said, “I want to solve this problem in a much deeper way. Not like Mana Siphon —as it is—allowed me to suck in any of the extra abilities that were littered around Margleknot.”

Solomon nodded, asking, “You didn’t even try though, did you? Didn’t you say that Margleknot gave you a vein of power in your house to draw from, and you didn’t draw from that vein?”

Erick winced… And then he relaxed. “Well. There were other powers in the air. Lots and lots of them. Pretty sure I got some experience with Elemental Fate from a friend I made, but…” Erick held up a hand and tried channeling Elemental Fate… And promptly got nowhere. Benevolence came out of his hand and then fluttered around. “Fate is Banned, so if I got Fate then I don’t know how to use it.” Erick said, “I certainly don’t think the problem is that Benevolence cannot be Fate or Genesis, but this is all very new to me, and yeah, I probably do need to take in some ambient Fate and Genesis and all the rest that I might find later, littered around the world.”

“You Siphoned Malevolence, right?” Solomon asked, “Can you do Malevolence?”

“Ha!” Erick smiled. “You know? I never even tried, and I’m going to keep it that way.”

Solomon smiled. “Yeah. Me, too. Try the ambient collection solution.”

Erick made a tube of ambient Benevolence in the air, holding it at the bottom with his gripped hand. It was an upside-down [Renew] ring, with Erick’s gripped hand at the opening.

Erick flooded the tube toward the right with Benevolence. White lightning-light rushed out in that direction, rapidly becoming nothing more than invisible, ‘dead’ mana, as it swam around the tube toward the top and then around the other side. This caused an increase in mana pressure in the tube, because Erick was both in complete control of the tube and he had a lot of mana to push.

He tried opening his soul on the other side of the tube.

… And nothing happened as the tube filled with denser and denser mana. Only a few seconds passed, and the tube rapidly crystallized, all at once, in complete defiance of the Script’s control over the land and this space. Too much mana from Wizards kinda did that. Erick released the space and the mana crystal rapidly vanished, for the Script had taken over again, though it never really stopped.

So there were some problems.

Erick suggested, “Let’s go into the dungeon? You can turn down the ambient mana in there?”

Solomon said, “Sure. It won’t help, though. You did everything correctly, just not the re-absorption part.” Solomon stood, asking, “Want to see the Black Gate anyway? I was wondering if you could help me bring some stuff out of it that was too big for me, but we don’t have to do that now, either.”

Erick remained seated, because now he really Looked at Solomon. “You’re not okay. What’s wrong?”

Solomon was about to play it off as nothing was wrong.

Erick waited.

And then Solomon sighed. He sat back down. “My first fuckup which caused the whole world to turn against me was the loss of the Lifeblood Heart. That giant mana heart left me, zipped away through all the adamantium shells overhead, avoiding every single person who should have caught it, and then went sailing into the void. Rozeta kinda hated me for that. She wasn’t the only one. It was… tough.” He sighed, then said, “Gods, it’s so weird to be talking like this— I lost track of gravity! I swear I did, but the mana history showed my inner ears telling me where gravity was, but I aimed in the opposite direction for some stupid fucking reason. I’d blame Malevolence, since that’s so fashionable these days, but I fucked up somehow and I have no idea how. But! Even the worst case scenario was that that stupid fucking Heart should have still been in the sky doubling everyone’s mana generation for years, no matter where it went… But Nothanganathor ate it, obviously. He had to have. Pretty much confirmed-without-confirming.”

A lot of people when they poured their hearts out only wanted someone to vent to; someone to listen.

Solomon wanted solutions, and he wanted Erick to have those solutions.

“Want to make a new Heart?” Erick asked, completely serious.

Solomon’s bad mood evaporated. “Yes. I do want to make a new Heart. I was hoping that with you here, that you and I can work together to pluck it out of the Dark, even though it’s already gone. I tried for a long while to find it again on my own, but… You know how you suspected that we were only ever going to get one chance with a lot of things we take from there? That turned out to be true, and the Heart was one of those.”

Erick said, “I was thinking we could do something with the Awakening Machine stuff, actually; we can leave the old solutions in the past. You know how the Lifeblood Heart doubled everyone’s mana production within several light years of distance? The Awakening Machine turns a 1-mana-per-day person into a 50-MPD person. Whatever is going on there is some of the same sort of thing, but the scale is obviously completely different. Perhaps too different? I don’t know. The Awakening Machine is great for low-level people, but the Heart is fantastic for high levels and on a vastly increased scale.”

Erick let his words hang out there.

And Solomon had a lot of sudden thoughts, chaining off of each other. Erick couldn’t read his mind, but he could see Solomon thinking deeply. Something flickered in the man’s body, in his very soul, like a wave of invisibility sweeping through the clouds of Solomon’s being. Erick doubted that Solomon noticed, because the Script obscured that sort of thing. Erick noticed it. It was the flow of resons in a person; a golden light that was obscured.

Erick realized something himself, in that moment, about Truths and purpose and the multiplication of mana production due to better futures, and wondered if Solomon would share in his realization.

The Awakening Machine was an act of Authority demanding the waking of possibilities of a better future. This act caused mana production to rise. It did more than that, though. The Awakening Machine also helped increase reson production. All magic was linked, after all; even the magics of different universes.

That was why the people at the Awakening Machine Research Center were having such difficulty understanding it.

Erick was starting to suspect that there was no understanding it. It was magic. Yes, people would be devoting a lot of time and effort into studying it all, and there were likely some underlying principles they could discover aside from the nebulous thing that the Awakening Machine ‘awakened someone to the possibilities of More’. But it was like a fundamental principle of the universe; past a certain point, things just worked that way.

Erick grinned that thought.

… And then he thought more.

Perhaps the underlying truth of the Awakening Machine and the Lifeblood Heart was truly rooted in Wizardry and Authority; that things worked how they worked because people decided they worked that way—

Ah.

… Was the Lifeblood Heart, perhaps, the failed Ascension of a Creation Wizard?

Maybe a dead god?

Or rather, was the original Lifeblood Heart any of those things?

Melemizargo had spoken about the nature of the Lifeblood Heart before, but it was the sort of explanation that Shadow had given about ‘what is the Dark Mark’; ‘It’s a thing that does a thing, Erick. What more do you need to know?’ Obviously neither of them had spoken exactly like that, but that was the gist of it all. Melemizargo never bullshitted anything, but he was a god, and he preferred giving people hints about deep truths, so that they would discover those truths on their own. Shadow did the same.

The fact was that the Lifeblood Heart had been a part of the Dark and Melemizargo until it had been liberated from the Black Gate, in the dungeon down at the bottom of Solomon’s Black Castle. Everything that had come out of the dungeons was like that. Were all those things taken from the Dark the original thing? Not really, and yet they were. Did they function the same as they ‘used to function’? Also yes.

How?

Well.

That’s where Wizardry happened.

Erick was reminded of the infinite density mana crystals of the Glittering Depths, upon which he had based his own Ascension to Wizardry.

When the people of Greensoil were making that Grand Dungeon, and replicating those dense crystals, they were piggybacking off of the idea of infinite depth crystals that were first made in the Old Cosmology. On that original world where the mana-diamonds came to be, the creation of the infinitely dense crystal had first required that someone have that idea, and then make that idea happen. Literally make it happen, too. Once the original idea had occurred, there was a shift in the local manasphere which made it easier to replicate the ‘impossibility’ of the original creation.

Like the world had learned something new.

Like the introduction of Renew to Veird, or Particle Physics to Earth, or any number of other large creative events. ‘The world’ had learned something new.

Solomon was learning something new right now.

Erick felt like he was learning something new, too, but it wasn’t about the Lifeblood Heart, or mana creation. It was about Paradox, and Benevolence, and Renew, and Genesis. But mostly about this ambient-mana-thing that his Genesis-conversation had turned into.

Erick wasn’t sure when it had happened, but suddenly—

Erick spoke, “I’m—”

“I need—” Solomon started right with Erick.

“Go ahead.”

“You first.”

Erick rapidly said, “I need to go play around with some spellwork, now.”

“Me, too.” Solomon asked, “Catch you around in an hour?”

“Maybe a little longer.”

- - - -

Erick stood upon a lonely mountain in the southern hemisphere on the Third Sphere, sparse with greenery, under a simple blue sky that was not blue at all. It was colored blue with illusions. The actual color coming down was sunshine-colored; mostly white with a bit of yellow. The actual sun was nowhere to be seen, for the ‘sun’ was somewhere far in the north; too far past the horizon of this shell and too far beyond the bottom of the floor of the shell above to make any sort of appearance in this location.

When Solomon had created the Shells of Veird on the Day of Genesis, he had wrapped the world in adamantium and added a bunch of water and dirt in the general shapes of the continents on the Surface.

The place Erick now stood was in the general shape of Continental Nergal, on the Old Surface below, but it was not really the same shape at all, and the life that existed here was not the same either. The shell above this ‘Third Sphere’ was a similarly bad-translation of this sphere’s ‘continental Nergal’, which ended up looking more like a whole bunch of islands and not at all like the solid land mass that was Nergal. Those islands on the Fourth Sphere were more connected to the ‘bad translation’ of Glaquin to the north, forming a whole different continent, than they were forming anything that truly resembled Continental Nergal.

Veird was now a matryoshka of nested spheres of different continents and oceans leading all the way up to the Silver Surface —now the Silver Forest— of Sphere Eleven. Prior to the creation of that Silver Forest, the Silver Surface was a reflective defensive layer, and the Silver Staging Area of Sphere Ten was the actual final inhabited zone…

Erick would get to all that later.

But the idea of the improperly-copied Surfaces was a good starting point for this Siphon-esque framework.

Perhaps there were multiple reasons why Solomon and Syllea and all the others to come before never really got any use out of ambient mana accretion, aside from Malevolence in the air. Sure, ambient mana was ‘dead’, and one probably needed to use resons to make it ‘live’ again, but also the Script simply prevented certain things even without trying to prevent them.

Like, mana pools were intrinsically tied to the Script, but even when you got ‘out’ of the Script (into Ar’Cosmos, for instance, where accretion and cores determined how much mana a person could hold onto, but not how much they made) the Authority of the Script was still there, still impacting a person’s control over their own mana in certain, inalienable ways. It was very possible that it was impossible to properly gather ambient mana on one’s own when one’s mana wasn’t under one’s own control.

Maybe Erick could fix that.

Also, Solomon was a Creation Wizard, and Syllea wasn’t a Wizard at all, and Solomon’s base mana ‘flavor’ wasn’t the highly-mana-variable Benevolence like Erick’s was. Solomon was Genesis.

Erick was the Paradox Wizard who had already solved the ‘unsolvable’ problem of multiple, untrained people perfectly using their mana together. That solution was [Renew]; which gave rise to the node networks all across Veird, and also Erick’s own Mana Siphon Ability, which was [Renew] with Erick at the drawing center of that ‘node network’.

Mana Siphon was basically [Undertow Star] turned into an Ability.

Mana Siphon did nothing with ambient mana, but Erick could solve the problem of ambient mana collection and unification, too.

Erick began weaving ideas in the air, making spheres of multiphasic transformation and culmination into solid plots. The basic idea of this was to be a corona-like magic of Authority and condensation and then eventually Paradoxing straight into the power of the soul of the one who wielded it. Soon, Erick had a bunch of images holding in the air all around him.

It looked good.

Probably a lot of mistakes there, though.

Erick moved on to the practical ideas of this new spell, and probably Ability. If this worked out, then Erick would gift it to Rozeta and the Script. If this worked, it would likely become a cornerstone of making a personal Script that they could arm warriors with, for fighting against Nothanganathor.

The Script already had a version of what Erick was working on, though. Turning ambient mana into personal mana was exactly what the Script did all the time. One of the cornerstones of a manaminer, after all, was churning intentless, atmospheric mana, into mana that actually did stuff, like automatically defending the land, and, in the Script’s case, gave that mana back to people for them to use.

The manaminers that Erick had worked with were massive, clunky things, though. They brought mana to ‘life’ through massive ‘tubes’ of dead mana ‘running beside’ alive mana, and a general ‘proximity-creates-life’ sort of ‘re-alivening’ of the dead mana. Powerminer Incorporated and the various miners that Erick had played around with used a whole lot more special terms than that, but the idea was there. Proximity creates life in the mana, and so, if you went slow enough with it, and if you drew mana through enough living things, then you’d get a bunch of living mana out the other end that could be used for stuff, like ‘holding up the sky’ and ‘allowing people to cast [Mend] on their broken shoelaces’, and other such things.

“Of course,” Erick said to himself as he began moving his aura around and in the air, “If this is to work at all, it requires mana-systems to work at human-size the same way it works at 10-kilometer size, with its 10,000-kilometer-long multi-dimensional pipes…” He paused. “… Or larger. Hmm. Nothanganathor probably uses a lot of ambient mana. Being sun-sized would allow one to easily incorporate ambient-mana-reclamation systems rather easily.”

… Did Erick need to be in dragon form to work ambient mana properly?

… That’s an experiment for a different day, or perhaps this day—

But first!

Erick formed a ring-tunnel with his aura in front of him, about 5 meters across and a meter thick, and then he split that ring-tunnel into two different sides with his hands. With his right hand, he sent out mana into the space, making it go right in the tunnel and then curve around to the left. White lightning-light flowed into the tunnel, rapidly increasing the level of mana within.

On the left side, Erick held his left hand into the flow, and he tried to open up his soul to let the ambient mana back in—

… He tried to open his soul...

… He tried to open his soul...

… He tried to open his soul...

This was not working.

The tunnel filled with mana and the pressure began to create mana crystals… And Erick pulled his hands back. The ring remained filled with ambient mana… Which was good enough to try and absorb from there, Erick guessed. No need to go for the release+absorb in the same action; not yet, anyway. Soon, the mana soup lost all cohesion with Erick’s basic, living intent and became invisible ambient mana.

Erick stuck a hand into the tunnel of mana soup and let his hand linger in the density.

He turned on his Mana Siphon, just to see if that worked. And nope, of course it didn’t. Erick had made his Mana Siphon specifically to absorb ‘living mana’; the stuff inside of spellwork and other people. Ambient mana was a whole different problem, as Erick had already known way back then.

So.

Couldn’t use Mana Siphon to do this.

… His body was a manifestation that he could recreate at any moment at time, since his real body was the crystal form— well. It was a self-recreating system of many varied parts.

Point was, Erick could breathe in potentially-lethal mana vapors and try to bring in the ambient mana that way.

Erick stuck his head into the tunnel of Benevolence-flavored, ambient mana soup.

It was kinda stifling.

He breathed in the stuff, and it turned into crystals in his lungs. They poked. Erick bled. Kinda really painful, actually. But not lethal. Erick breathed in the ambient mana, and wondered why it was crystallizing in his body at all, but then, of course, his body had a bunch of ‘seed manas’ for it to crystallize on. His body was his crystalline self, after all; even his fleshy-display-body was Paradoxically also his crystal body.

The Script kept the crystals from getting too big, though. Even as they formed, they dissipated. Erick stopped breathing and the crystals stopped forming; they only dissipated.

Erick was kinda stumped, in a few different ways.

He could surely use his Authority to make the dead mana his, but that seemed improper. Other people weren’t using Authority to do this at all… Were they? Solomon didn’t seem like he was.

Erick thought about getting a second opinion, and he thought about Yggdrasil. Margleknot had to deal with sorting through and combining all different powers from many different universes all into resons.

“Yggdrasil? Are you there?”

… No response.

Erick smirked at that. Apparently his son wasn’t looking at everything, all the time.

Erick opened a portal to Yggdrasil at Candlepoint and stepped out onto his son’s roots. He looked up at the flaming green canopy overhead, and at the lightning-like branches, and asked, “Got a moment to talk about ambient mana reclamation?”

Yggdrasil stepped onto his own roots in his green orcol form. “Not much time. What’s up?”

“Quick question, then: Do you use Authority to make multiple types of powers into resons, or some sort of Ability, or some sort of… something else?” Erick said, “This whole thing started off as me trying to use Genesis mana with Solomon, and that didn’t work, so I assumed I had to actually experience Genesis mana through taking some in for myself, which led to the ambient mana thing, which I am having trouble with. Specifically the ‘taking into myself’ part.”

Yggdrasil was instantly hesitant when Erick asked about Margleknot, but he at least listened to the whole request before denying, saying, “I can’t tell you exactly what’s happening there because of old agreements with many different people. I can tell you that I use a bunch of different systems, and they’re all basically, eventually, reson-based. Resons are simply easier to use than all other forms of power, and that is especially true for me. Maybe not for you or many other people, but it is true for me.” Yggdrasil asked, “Why not Mana Siphon some Genesis in?” Yggdrasil made a [Ward] of Genesis in the shape of a small orb. “Here.”

Erick almost said that he wanted to do this the ambient-way… But then he poked at the orb with some Mana Siphon. The orb gradually drained, because Mana Siphon was rather weakened inside the Script, and Erick didn’t feel like fighting against the Script right now.

When the orb was gone, Erick held up a hand and tried to channel Genesis.

He got some weird sparks that crackled, more than chimed.

Yggdrasil raised an eyebrow. “Strange?”

Erick felt a little bit of vindication, as he said, “Mana Siphon is designed to take all other spellwork and turn it into power for myself, which means erasing the original power in that spellwork and turning it into [Renew]-framed power.”

Yggdrasil said, “Ahh… Yeah. That would do it.”

“Anyway.” Erick asked, “Does size make it easier to convert ambient mana to living mana?”

“Yes. Economies of scale always win out over individual works.” Yggdrasil said, “Bigger manaminers do a lot better than smaller manaminers.”

“Yup. Thought so.”

“You could probably reconnect to the Script and get some Genesis mana that way… But yeah. I can see you don’t really want to do that.” Yggdrasil continued, “Alternatively, you could harmonize with it? Benevolence should be able to become Genesis; they’re very closely related.” Yggdrasil asked, “Did harmonization not work?”

Erick shrugged. “Not really.” He held up a hand, and he tried to replicate the singing, chiming power he heard from Solomon’s Genesis, but all he accomplished was a sputtering disharmony of mana with no idea what it was. “I have realized something else, too. Watch.” Erick tried to Alter his mana into Purity, and he only ended up with Light-flavored Ice. “This is an attempt at Elemental Purity, which I saw some in Margleknot and other places, like inside the Black Gate. But this is not Purity at all.”

The Script tried to Silence Erick’s speaking of the word ‘Purity’ as an Element, but he was beyond that type of control, and so was Yggdrasil. Since Erick hadn’t produced any actual Purity, though, it left his mana display untouched.

Yggdrasil frowned a little. He instantly understood the problem. “Benevolence only knows the mana that you’ve experienced through the Script— or rather, ‘personally experienced’ makes more sense. I did not foresee this problem. You used Annihilation on Margleknot, and that’s Banned here.”

Erick raised an eyebrow. He had a think, about his [Shadow Altered] spells he had tried one time, that had acted like Annihilation. “Annihilation is Banned here, then? I suppose my times using it were just flukes that were made to look like other magics.” … Erick ignored that tangent, for now. “I need to fix this Elemental Genesis thing, obviously. I’m not sure I want to fix it with a flex of Wizardry, because then I’d need to do that all the time.”

“Don’t worry about needing to do Wizardry every time you use something outside of currently established Benevolence.” Yggdrasil held up a hand, and channeled a Silence into the air, along with a small prominence of invisibility. “That’s Purity, and I’m doing it with Benevolence.” He channeled Genesis next, making a little silver tangle of half-seen charms float up and away from him, like metal bells that weren’t bells at all. “And that’s Genesis, also done with Benevolence. I am almost 100% certain that what you’re experiencing is some mental block, maybe because you don’t want to encroach on Solomon’s power. Or maybe you’re just not actually exposed to Genesis yet. Could be either, really.”

Erick hadn’t realized that about himself, but… “Maybe. Hmm.”

“Just do some minor Wizardry to make it so you have always experienced Genesis.”

“… That’s one way to do it.” Erick thought. And then he moved on, “Moving on: Does a longer tube-system make turning dead mana into alive mana easier? Does Nothanganathor have a very, very large tube system to eat ambient mana, do you think?”

“Yes and yes,” Yggdrasil said, without reservation. And then he tried to keep his anger in check, as he said, “I’m pretty sure he turned Margleknot’s Fractal Mark into part of his collection magics. Not sure which part, but it’s there.”

“We’ll get it back for you—”

“Not for me, father. For Margleknot. We’re the same but… not.”

Erick simply nodded. “Okay. Thanks for the ambient mana help. I was kinda trying to avoid needing to use resons to make ambient mana my own, but I suppose that is necessary.”

“It always takes resources of some sort to work with ambient mana.” Yggdrasil said, “Time, physical energy, resons; those are the most common. You’re taking something that was dead and making it alive and a part of you again. It’s simple digestion. Sort of like a good, working sewer system, using bacteria to clean up water. Even the largest manaminer systems are these kinds of mana digesters at their base, with people serving as the living systems cleaning up mana in the sewers of a planet, or other sort of protected space.”

“Huh!” Erick chuckled. “Back to the sewers, eh?”

“Living things never really leave the sewers; they simply try to live outside of the really dirty parts.”

Erick laughed. “There’s some philosophy for you.”

Yggdrasil smiled. “I gotta go, father.”

“Me, too. Thanks for talking.” Erick hugged him once, asking, “Want to be there when I finally get Dinnamoth and Adavido to talk to me, at peace talks?”

Yggdrasil squeezed Erick and let go. “No, but I will be there because I need to be there.”

Erick smiled at that. “Understandable. It probably won’t happen for a while, anyway.”

Yggdrasil nodded, then departed.

Erick went back to the mountain of Not-Nergal, in the Not-Splinter Mountains of the Third Sphere, and experimented with magics.

Ten minutes in, and Erick realized he had a new, big concern.

“Lead.” Erick said to himself, “Lead unaspects all intent from mana, thus fully making it dead, thus making it able to be brought into the Script easier?”

Thoughts swirled.

“What’s the opposite of lead?”

More thoughts.

“… No fucking clue.” Erick gazed up at a massive structure of mana pumps and gravity wells and tubes of aurawork that was actually getting a little difficult to mentally maintain, because the structure was around a kilometer wide and filled with stuff. Except there was no lead. “And lead doesn’t work outside of the Script, anyway.”

And all of that was a tangent he didn’t need to think about right now.

Erick dispelled all of the structures he had created.

He went simple.

Erick held up his aura in a ball, about a meter across, and spoke to himself, “Sounds like Elemental Genesis mana in there, yeah?”

And the inside of that part of his aura transformed into a tangle of almost illusionary, silver charms, ringed in white sparks and chiming like Genesis.

Erick was surprised that worked, but it worked!

Erick hadn’t accreted in a long time, but he did that, wrapping the silver, chiming mana into his body, and because it was already his own, he had no trouble at all joining it with himself… Mostly. His aura flexed into his body, the silver part of it shimmering as it touched his skin, turning his skin briefly silver and revealing something almost crystal-like beneath the very surface of his flesh.

And then the Genesis faded.

Erick held up a hand and Altered some Benevolence into a prominence of silver, charming, chiming mana.

“So I cheated to get Genesis. This is fine.”

With a flex and a twist, Erick Shaped that Genesis into a Bolt.

A bullet shot from his aura and struck a rock up ahead, cracking off of that rock, the bullet deforming in the impact and then flying upward and away. Erick caught the bullet, and yeah. It was a bullet.

Erick held the semi-squished metal in his hand, feeling some weird sort of way.

He had made a bullet.

“A mother fucking bullet.”

Erick was kinda blown away by that.

What kind of metal was it, anyway? Erick gripped the metal and used his Class Ability of Metal Sense, that he had made himself, and discovered that the real fucking bullet was made of mostly iron with some aluminum, gold, silver, nickel, and osmium. It was pretty soft for a metal.

Erick fired off another Genesis Bolt at the rock ahead, but he slowed this one down with his aura, leaving it undamaged. It was shaped exactly like a bullet; a dome-cone on the front and a cylindrical body.

Erick laughed suddenly and loudly. Bullets! Here on Veird! How fucking crazy was that!

“And they stick around, too!” Erick said to himself, as he held the very real bullet in his hand. Erick smiled. “Good job on crashing the metals economy, Solomon— Oh! This one is even more silver than before.”

Erick turned his aura into an absolute machine gun, churning out thousands of bullets a minute, tweaking his Shaping and Altering in hundreds of different ways, mostly through harmonizing his Particle Magic with Elemental Genesis. Bullets made of sodium shot out alongside bullets made of carbon. There went pure gold bullets and then Erick did some pushing to get uranium bullets.

Hydrogen bullets were a laugh.

Erick rapidly discovered that his [Genesis Bolt] —which he had not made into a real spell, yet— was not very good at actually homing in on the target. Which was to say that it was absolute shit at homing. Worse than shit, really. Erick had to actually aim with the bullets and oftentimes the bullet was affected by air and gravity and all that stuff that Bolt spells shouldn’t be affected by.

He fixed that problem by Shaping and casting the spell inside a long tube of aura. That tube was more trouble to maintain than it was worth when Erick could just fire more bullets at the problem.

Erick focused on platinum bullets, because those seemed the most practical; heavy, kinda solid. He added a copper-nickel jacket to it, which made the whole thing a bit harder to Alter and Shape for, but the resulting bullet was a lot stronger than the original, plain-platinum version; solid and heavy. The copper-platinum bullets had some real power to them…

Or as much power as the basic Bolt spell had, when its payload was real metal; so maybe 10 times the power of a normal Bolt? This version would probably blow a pumpkin up at 200 meters, and drive a centimeter or two into rock, but not much more than that. Still pretty good…

… Erick almost moved on to using Genesis to make rocket propelled grenades and other completely-inappropriate things to have on Veird, which is when he realized he didn’t want bullets and rockets and stuff like that here. Nope nope!

“Magic is much cooler than guns,” Erick said to himself, as he surveyed the vast, vast amounts of metal he had sprayed all over the mountainside. He grinned, despite himself. “This is pretty nifty, though!” Softer, he said, “Solomon did some great work.”

Erick could probably make… Hmm. A lot…

Erick paused.

“Solomon can make the breakthroughs.” Erick said to himself, “I’ll stick to making physical stuff when I need it, and without needing to use resons.”

And now, back to the problem of ambient mana collection, which was probably connected to the problem of Genesis, but not in a direct way at all.

Erick opened up his aura, and wondered if his problem was that he had purposefully closed himself off to outside influence except along the avenues which he had chosen to leave open. He had shut out his vulnerability, because to be vulnerable to soul attack was to die. This was kind of a large emotional problem, but it was also a magical problem, it seemed.

Adding to this, Erick had accreted perfectly for years upon years, and Rozeta’s Accretion even helped him accrete perfectly. In his ascension to True Wizard, Erick had purposefully solidified that part of himself, so that he would never accidentally accrete with ambient mana, if he ever needed to do such a thing ever again.

But to take in ambient mana, Erick needed to accrete poorly.

He already kinda knew how he would need to do it, too.

Erick held out a hand, and then opened his aura and his reson channels at the same time. The part of himself that he had re-carved into himself out of his old, defunct mana channels, was now used by resons, and his [Reson Wallet]. But he could turn those tunnels of golden resons into ambient mana ‘enliveners’… probably?

Erick adjusted his Status first to have 20% reson production; going up from 9%.

Invisible flickers began flexing inside his reson channels, alongside his veins, in a shadowy system of not-blood vessels, inundating his body as his mana turned into Banned power, the Script keeping those things from his sight.

Erick opened up a tiny, tiny tunnel of his aura, from his palm to where his core used to be, and began purposefully accreting through that flow of resons, which was almost like accreting normally, but not at all—

Sudden, completely surprising pain ripped across Erick’s palm. A centimeter of flesh dissolved away, like crystal melting. Erick shook out his hand and paused as his flesh came back, restored. His Status had briefly flickered down a few hundred points of Health out of billions, so there wasn’t any danger of dying, but it was not a good feeling.

Erick would need to find another way…

And now his skin was making reson crystals like so much broken glass poking out of him, so he turned that 20% allocation back to 9%.

With normalcy mostly restored, Erick tried creating his aura into a very, very long tunnel, curved in on itself a lot, kilometers-long and about the width of a human hair, and then he held that tunnel in his hand, with one end in the open air and the other leading into his actual body. Next, he extended some resons into that space. The resons were lost at first, as an invisible flex in the air that dissipated like so many Mind Mage tendrils, but then Erick started pulling in the ambient mana through that tunnel, and the resons came in first…

Not painful.

Mana was going inside of him, yes.

And not crystallizing along the way, but instead turning to tiny flickers of white lightning that then went inside of his body.

Erick kept an eye on his Status. His reson production briefly decreased because he was venting some of it, but then it came back as he drew those resons back into his body, along with all the mana in the air. He was ‘accreting’ with resons, so this got around the mental block of taking in ambient mana…

And it seemed to be working.

With those resons came the ambient mana they touched, and Erick barely noticed a drain on his resources. There was a draw, though. A certain sort of tiredness. Perhaps it was as strenuous as lifting a finger, or taking a step; nothing more serious than that.

Checking on his Mana production, Erick watched as it went from 1,505 per second to 1,508 per second, though he was taking some sort of damage from the draw, at around 38 damage per second to his Mana. Considering that, it seemed he was actually taking in 41 mana per second, which seemed to jive with how much mana was actually flowing through his reson-imbued-tube area. The overall change was a positive change, and that was what mattered.

He stopped the funnel.

His mana production went back down to 1,505 per second, and the damage stopped.

Erick smiled.

“Proof of concept proven!” Erick said, “Now to make sure I didn’t fuck myself up.”

Erick dove into his soul.

It took a minute to frameshift past the Script’s interference, but Erick eventually saw his Dark Mark as the black headwaters of a great river of iridescent white light. There, among that river, lay his Lightning Path Status, like crystal boulders, with the river rushing all around those solid buttons of power. It was a bit of an odd way to see it all, but it worked well enough. Everything looked normal enough.

He lifted halfway back into the present, made the reson tube again, and then began accreting resons and adjacent ambient mana into his soul once again. Erick looked inward—

He lost control of the structure. It took him a few tries to adjust the tube to be less complicated, and to hold onto it in that liminal space between consciousness and soul searching, but he got it.

Gazing upon the river…

Erick watched as nothing happened at the headwaters, near his Status.

Erick gradually moved away from his Status, toward the ocean of Mana, Health, and Psyche further and further away from everything important, but still in the river of his Lightning Path.

Finally, there at the very edges, Erick saw something different.

The iridescent white river flowed, but here and there clumps of color and browns and harsh crystals and silvers and other not-Benevolence things simply appeared in the deluge and then vanished with the tide, melding with what was already there. The ocean at that point was a bit more colorful-white than it had been before, and soon all was simple iridescence.

Erick was ‘polluting’ his various resources, but those ‘pollutants’ were becoming a part of him easily enough.

Erick felt a lot of different ways about that.

Mostly happy, because yes, everything could exist just fine within Benevolence, because Benevolence could meld with anything else just fine, too. That was the entire basis of [Renew] architecture and Mana Siphon, after all. Erick was a part of the world; not apart from the world.

The mana was the mana, and Erick was Erick, and where they met they communicated and shared, and thus truth flowed and the world changed.

Erick breathed deep, once again simply standing there on a mountain under a false sky, where the wind was cold and the land littered with bullets.

He was 100% sure that he had figured out ambient mana collection.

He could do this gathering without damaging himself.

And so, Erick opened his aura and flooded that aura with invisible resons. If he were outside of the Script perhaps he would have appeared like his [Lodestar]-empowered self, in his sunform, but here he was simply enmeshed in a mirage, like there was a certain thickness in the air. Into that thickness Erick carved paths, long and winding, like the paths that the Day of Clouds had created throughout all of Veird, like veins going inward. These veins went deep into the infinite capacity of Erick’s true self.

And then he asked the mana, “Would you like to join me?”

The cold wind turned warm as it trickled down through countless fractal-esque tunnels, through Erick’s contained and recycled resons, like a different sort of thickness in the air. That flow became a rush that brightened as it got deeper in the tunnels, closer to Erick’s true self. It had not yet contacted his skin, but it was about—

The crash of endless mana types became a rush of iridescent white light right before it touched Erick’s skin. All of the combined colors of the manasphere flowed into him, joining his Status. It was tiring to keep it all going, to pull in the resons as he pulled in the mana, but as moments of draw turned to minutes, Erick molded the shift of the world around him into something easier to do, and feel.

And then he made it into a button he could press.

Words appeared, floating free of any blue box.

- -

Endless Aura, 1 second start + concentration, medium range, 100/10 mana/resons base reservation

Turn a portion of your power into a conductor of ambient mana to gather that ambient mana and enliven it to new possibilities within yourself. This is a fragile system and should not be used in combat. This is a tiring system and will stop when it is not concentrated upon. Disruption of this system incurs the loss of the reserved mana and resons.

10 ambient resources gathered per base reservation, per second.

You can have as many instances of this spell active as you can handle.

Beware if there is something truly toxic in the air, for that toxin will become a part of you.

- -

Erick smiled at his new spell.

All around him was a shell of power with… looked like 15,987 starting points around the edge, like tiny holes drilled into a luminous barrier; the beginnings of threads. Where the threads started they were only visible as holes, but closer to Erick’s body, those tubes of ambient mana turned into quiet, iridescent light, that flowed into his body, joining his Status. It was sort of like his Mana Siphon Ability, but a lot more complicated, since ambient mana was dead and needed to be worked over to join with him, and even when it did join it wasn’t a full-joining right away. That took time.

It was sort of like…

Soulvore monsters, like banshees, mostly survived by eating living things. Like all monsters, they loved to accrete ambient mana, but only by eating the mana of people could they maintain their power as they knew it. If they tried to eat ambient mana they usually mutated into other things. So they tended to eat a little bit of the living thing around them, as they attempted to conduct the mana around them into new life, to thus consume that new life.

Erick was similarly ‘waking up’ the mana all around him in order to draw it inside.

Erick’s thoughts multiplied as he looked all around him at the flow of mana coming to him, like he was the center of a planet. Like he was a manaminer core, actually.

“Lotta stuff here simply makes sense, now that I actually did it.”

Glancing at his Status, Erick watched his 1,505 mana per second gains turn into a lot more than that, shooting all the way up to 51,064 per second.

His other resources were similarly buffed.

Each of those threads coming down from that aura out there was 1 instance of Endless Aura, and while each of those 15,987 starting points had cost him 100 mana and 10 resons to start and maintain, each one was giving him 10 mana per second. He was gaining 159,870 extra resources per second, and each of those was becoming part of his Mana, Health, and Psyche, and even his reson cache, too.

Hmm. About that...

Erick was inside a bubble of his own resons, turning the air thick with Banned and hidden power, but he wasn’t absolutely crystallizing the air with his resons? Seemed like he should have been, since his reson creation number jumped up from 436.93 mana dedicated to it —which meant 48.54 reson-production per second— to 14,388 mana per second, which meant 1598 resons per second.

Erick looked at himself—

Erick made the mistake of moving more than just his head and his lips. He moved an arm, and that broke the entire spell. He had been forming something of a crystal shell around himself, but now that ephemeral shell broke, sending cracks throughout the entire mana/reson structure of the entire [Endless Aura]. The whole thing evaporated in every direction at once in a crackling, tinkling crash.

“Ah?”

… Erick cast [Endless Aura] just once.

A very thin white shell of mana reappeared around him, at around 3 meters out. A single thread of empty space extended out from that shell, right in front of Erick, forming a thread that twirled inside a cloying mirage of resons, before that thread touched the center of Erick’s chest. Mana flowed through that tube, becoming a soft white glow of many colors, before it touched Erick’s body and became one with his Status.

Erick smiled at that.

He stepped to the right and the whole shell broke again, but there was no crashing, crystallized resons this time; he hadn’t put enough into the working to cause that. Just a simple tinkling in the air that broke like cotton candy. He used the spell a few more times, just to see how he could improve the spell, perhaps. But then again, maybe he didn’t need to—

Rozeta stepped to Erick’s side. She purposefully kept her voice soft and even, as she said, “Hello, Erick. Can we discuss that spell you made?”

“Yup!” Erick produced a copy of [Endless Aura], and then held it in the air between them. Rozeta’s eyes went wide, and then she looked relieved. Erick asked, “I imagine it works better than whatever the Script does?”

Rozeta plucked the spell from the air, sighing in happiness. “The Script’s system is a lot more complicated than that. What this might do is simplify a great deal of the lead and other anti-magic systems that we use to scrub the mana of intent, to allow the ambient mana to more easily be used by others. I might be able to enable a part of the Script I never got working, either.” She smiled. “The part that allowed people to use true ambient mana to accrete.”

Erick laughed. “Was that ever an option?”

“Oh sure.” Rozeta said, “In the Old Cosmology that’s how people got power for themselves, usually. They picked out an Element and then accreted that Element, becoming that sort of person. That’s how magic schools were founded.” She added, “The Wizard made the mana, and the underlings accreted it, making themselves of the same school of magic as the Wizard. A lot of people even had multiple parts of their souls to draw in different elements for use in different spellworks, since Altering could only ever get most people so far. That was dangerous, though; impure, people would call it.”

Erick nodded. “Most people stuck to singular sources.”

“Yes. True ambient mana gathering is highly dangerous, but everyone used to get magic and power by taking in and separating specific manas, for use in specific spells.” Rozeta said, “The problem with that was that high-purity Elemental sources were highly guarded. Most people only had access to dangerous, multi-Elemental environments. Anyone who accreted in those areas would go insane through monsterization, so most people did not do magic at all.” Rozeta added, “This [Endless Aura] you made will bring power to everyone equally, though, and accomplish one of the major purposes of the Script; the empowerment of the masses…” She smiled softly, “I had a great big speech on the benefits of giving me a copy of your magic, but you made all of that superfluous.”

Erick grinned. “This should solve some of the problems of an individual not having enough resources to sustain a Personal Script, too.”

“Already working on that, and yes, you’re correct. It’ll be more complicated than that…” Rozeta looked a little too excited, as she said, “But maybe not for much longer! Solomon is working on the other half of this, though I don’t believe he knows it yet. He’s maybe an hour away from an enormous creation. Melemizargo has fully cordoned off the area against all possible influence.”

Erick breathed deep. “Oh?”

- - - -

Solomon drew diagrams on ten different chalkboards at once in a hidden room of his Black Castle. He was working on something he had tried before, but which had not worked at all.

Infinite Mana.

He was a Creation Wizard, right?

Right!

So he should be able to make infinite mana. And yet, the only times he had been able to make infinite mana had been when he had been in the throes of power with that damnable Lifeblood Heart, when he was ‘cultivating’ with a small slice of an infinity of Other Ericks.

Oh how that failure to contain that artifact had marked him. Destiny tried to tell him it wasn’t his fault, and she truly believed that, but Solomon still blamed himself. In the aftermath of Erick’s return, and the Day of Clouds, Destiny had gleefully delighted in saying ‘I told you it wasn’t your fault!’ in tens of different ways, and Solomon loved her for that. It had made the sting of it all feel distant. Better.

Destiny made everything better…

Solomon returned to his work.

His first attempt at infinite mana had been, of course, to try and make infinite mana out of [Duplicate] and [Cleanse]. Take a bit of filth, and then copy it, and then evaporate it away into the manasphere. Everyone had told him how this could not be done, and their words had proven true.

The mana used to make a real thing was returned in exactly the same amounts of mana that had been used to make it. This was basic conservation of mass, but extended to energy and mana.

“Gods,” Solomon muttered to himself, as he sketched out ideas in chalk, erased other ideas with a swipe of his aura, and considered how complicated this thing actually was. “Is this even going to work? It should, theoretically. Infinite mana is the hallmark of all Creation Wizards, and I can only do that temporarily, and only borrowing from other side realities…”

Solomon fell silent as he worked, thinking about all the lives he touched that were not his own, briefly linking hands with himself, and granting each other mana and power, in that singular moment when he was briefly ‘Ascended’ with the Lifeblood Heart. He hadn’t been able to replicate that action at all since then. Oh, sure, he was definitely a Wizard. That part wasn’t in question. Rozeta didn’t treat him like Erick at all —more like a pale imitation and that still stung all these years later— but she was at least cordial enough to tell him that his mana regeneration was indicative that he was a Wizard.

Destiny had been wonderful there, too, telling him that of course he wasn’t Erick, and that was fine.

Solomon smiled a bit at that memory, pausing as he worked.

And then he got back to work.

After his initial failures of using [Cleanse] and Genesis together to make infinite mana, Solomon had put that whole idea on the backburner. He had Forever War shit to deal with, and Black Gate politics and—

Solomon cut that thought short. Leave the politics aside for a time. Now was the time for magic.

When [Cleanse] was revealed as a major problem and source of Nothor Beasts, along with many of the other spells inside of a person, Solomon had tried a [Cleanse]+[Duplicate] thing again, using pure Elemental Destruction and Genesis together to make a source of infinite mana; a spell that just made mana. Didn’t work. Using that spell just vented mana into the open air. Once again, conservation of mana proved itself to be true.

He even used the new [Cleanse] that Rozeta had handed out in replacement of the old [Cleanse]. That one didn’t work that well at all, and somehow the rate of exchange was actually not 1-1 with that spell. Solomon used it and a 10 kilogram pile of shit turned into 10 mana, but 10 mana only made 9 kilograms of shit. So that was a dead end, too.

Solomon had no idea where Rozeta had gotten such a bad version of [Cleanse], but Solomon used it to clean water and that was about it. Everyone was taking baths these days, which was a worldwide change from how it used to be, but it was okay. Bath times with Destiny had been a wonderful—

Solomon focused.

He focused, because the answer was right here. Somewhere around here.

Somewhere…

Somewhere…

Solomon had heard about the Awakening Machine, as had everyone else. He had gotten hold of some of the research coming out of the research center, too. He had also spoken with Erick about resons and he knew how to avoid using resons now, at the very least. And he would do that.

This working of infinite mana was a creation of mana. Not of Fractal infinity.

“And I can almost see it!” Solomon said, shaking his chalk-covered hands at diagrams of ideas that had somehow escaped him all this time. It was messy and half-formed, but… Okay. This idea here could go onto the paperwork. Solomon pulled a paper out of the air, turning Genesis into paper and ink and exactly what he was looking at, and then he put it onto the stacks of paper he was gathering in the center of the work room. “Almost got it. Just need to figure out…”

Solomon went to a different chalkboard on the other side of the room and started writing.

He liked using chalk these days instead of just lightpainting everything. Years ago, Debby had suggested he find himself through distancing himself from Erick, and writing with chalk on real boards worked out well. He loved making physical things, and this was just another way to make physical things. As he held his chalk in his hands, Solomon briefly thought about Debby, and about the small words that Fairy Moon had shared with him the other day, about Sundering and Erasing and all of that…

Those words were still jangling around in his mind.

‘Instead of investigating the incident itself, could you corroborate the conclusions all around the unknowing, unknown answer, and arrive with more known knowledge?’

Those words hadn’t made the most sense, but there was something there.

Perhaps Solomon had been staring too hard at the sun, at the failure of the Lifeblood Heart, at the failure of Fenrir, at the failure of himself, in all those other worlds… Solomon glanced at his left wrist, where Debby’s black knot of a Shackle of Memory had indelibly been stamped into his very soul; her final gift, to keep him safe from the Red Sparks, to keep him here and protected. Solomon loved the black tattoo that was a bracelet. It kept him focused on what he needed; on what he had lost.

But he had been staring so hard that he had been blind.

He was the Erick Who Failed.

But that wasn’t him, no more than describing his eyes or hair or face was to describe him; not anymore.

He was more than his starting point, and so was his goal. And so, he was becoming the Solomon who would Succeed, now that the Red wasn’t holding him down—

He paused.

He stared at the chalkboards, with their diagrams and curves and small bits of easy math. Solomon still wasn’t one for math, but it was great for understanding basic conversions and rates of exchange. With a swipe of his hand and aura, Solomon made one more page of the workings of his latest attempt at Infinite Mana.

And then he assembled his book.

Pages gathered together, and Solomon held them, creating a binding in that grip, organizing them all together into a cohesive whole.

“The secret to Infinite Mana was not in resonwork, or this Fractal Cosmology,” Solomon said to himself, “If that were the case then there would be no infinite mana generators in the Old Cosmology at all, and we certainly know that Creation Wizards existed without the intervention of any Fractal power, and they still do. Melemizargo is a Creation Wizard. My fault was in focusing on what came before, and extrapolating. My fault was basing any of this on the old stuff, and especially on [Cleanse]. I should have instead focused on new stuff. I am a Creation Wizard.” For a moment, Solomon felt like Erick again, but different. Himself, and yet not. “I should be creating.”

Solomon held up a hand filled with Genesis.

Most people probably saw a jumble of things when he did this. Little bells. Faces of unknown people. A fork. A cup. A lamp. An enchanting knife. Countless little things. Perhaps Erick had seen the truth, but probably not. And yet, Erick simply hadn’t spent enough time around Solomon to see that truth; not yet.

Genesis was a reflection of the world around it, of the memories of those who used it, and in that vision, Genesis tried to Become something real.

Just like Solomon.

In a way, like how famous art or books or architecture or kingdoms or the teaching of magic to students could all create new possibilities, or make new possibilities themselves, Genesis could do the same, and Become more of itself at the same time…

Good art inspired people to do more.

Genesis could do the same, and in a much more real, tangible way.

The world pulled away from Solomon. Vaguely, Solomon was aware he had disconnected from the Script. Melemizargo was here, watching. Let him watch.

Silver light poured out of Solomon’s core, out of his body, into the world, like the release of a million memories held in silver reflections. He swept a hand through those memories and gathered a sphere of power. With Darkness all around him, Solomon crafted a Silver Heart, using his own voice, and his own desire.

“In Wizard hands the silver gleams,

“reflecting, it becomes a start.

“This mirror takes the forms of dreams

“And turns them into beating heart.

“Lovely empowered resonance;

“Give birth to endless Genesis.”

Solomon’s power twisted into the Heart, and then the Heart beat.

The very world thumped with power.

And Solomon felt like a new man. Like he was seeing a great wrong be righted, in a very small way, for the Silver Heart spilled something into the world that was more ephemeral than light, but it was so very similar to something Solomon had already seen once, and had been trying to recapture all this time. The Lifeblood Heart had turned the world to rainbows and shadows with rainbows in them, turning everything into a fountain of its own power.

The Silver Heart beat a second time, and the world turned iridescent in its presence. The stone of the Black Castle wasn’t nearly as black as it had been. It was colored like gasoline on a dark puddle. The very air shimmered with the same color.

The Heart beat a third time, and it almost seemed ready to falter, but then it beat a fourth and fifth time, like it was past the hurdle and into clear sailing.

All the nearby world shimmered with a silver sheen. The distance on the magic wasn’t very far. Maybe 25 meters. The main effect was closer to the Heart, where Solomon stood inside the area of effect and his shadow turned to dark and bright, silver rainbows.

Solomon breathed out easy in the light of the Silver Heart—

The Script came back in tiny pieces. Solomon felt his mana pool swirl away, back out of his direct control. The world turned a bit less silver, a bit less amazing. But it was still wonderful. The Silver Heart still beat. The world was now More than it had been before.

And then came a blue box of creation, and a few other fun things. Solomon had invented a major spell, after all.

- -

Congratulations!

You have created a new Basic Spell. Your spell has been added to your skills for free!

The spell you have created will appear in the Script after a year and a day.

Your spell is the alpha version, and will shift with time and use.

The spell that appears in the Script might be different.

Here is your spell:

- -

- -

Silver Heart 1, instant, medium range, 5,000 mana

Create a creative work of power that multiplies the mana generation of all within its effect. This spell will falter if it is left unattended for too long. <The spell has a maximum range under the Script and cannot become propagative, but it might become so outside of the Script. Such a spell, if fed properly, might become a new Lifeblood Heart, or the heart of something.>

Genesis Mage Only

- -

- -

Rozeta thanks you for enriching the Script.

+250 ability points.

- -

- -

Amazing work, Solomon.

I’ll be removing your failsafe switch now.

-Rozeta.

- -

Solomon smiled at all of that—

A little twinge left him, like a muscle unwinding in a hot bath.

Solomon stood there for a moment, looking at the Heart.

It didn’t really look much like a heart. It was the size of one, sure. But it was more spherical and calmly effervescing, almost like [Cascade Imaging] or one of Erick’s new Weavers. Tiny beams of half-there light came off of this one, though, highlighting the world in strange, different ways where it touched. Solomon looked at the floor and walls where the light shone, and saw… Carpets, and some nice lights overhead, and the erasure of his chalkboards and maybe a bed over there, or maybe some of those screens that Erick had brought back with him from Margleknot. He could also simply turn this into a tiny garden. A nursery for kids. Another library. And more.

Solomon smiled as he saw possibilities for the space that he had never considered before.

And then he plucked a chair out of Genesis and sat down to look at the Heart hovering before him. He assigned all of his new points into the appropriate Stats, and then he turned back to the Heart. Some of those lines in the light looked almost like veins.

Briefly, ever so briefly, Solomon saw a person without a face and without any real markings at all, floating, with the Heart as their own heart.

Solomon gasped deeply at that ephemeral sight.

The moment passed.

Solomon breathed out.

He promised, “I’ll get you back, Debby. Soon. I probably gotta kill a world-eating dragon first, but… soon.”

The Heart might have pulsed stronger at that, but Solomon could also have been seeing things. Genesis mana tended to do that, and this working seemed to do a lot of that.

Poi’s voice came to him, ‘Erick wants to see you now, along with about 32 other parties, and that number is growing fast. Avandrasolaro wants to come see you as well, or more accurately, the magic you just made. We’re getting pings from the prognosticators of Treehome, most of all— Ah. Looks like Rozeta is— I think you’re getting a blue box right now.’

Solomon blinked, pulling himself out of his mind spiral as he heard Poi speaking to him from the dungeon down below the castle. And then he looked to the side and saw a blue box. He sent, ‘Ah. I see the box now. Thanks, Poi. I will be accepting that invitation. Can you let the others know?’

‘Done.’ Poi sent, ‘Great working, by the way.’

Solomon laughed, and then he sent, ‘That fucker Nothanganathor was holding back everyone.’

Wordless assent came through Poi’s connection.

Solomon turned to the new blue box.

- -

I, Rozeta, Goddess of the Script, am calling a meeting of all Relevant Entities, due to the creation of a new spell of Genesis. I have not told anyone what this spell does yet. You are invited to speak at this gathering as a temporary Relevant Entity, with possible raising to true Relevant Entity. Would you like to attend?

Yes / No

- -

“Yes.”

Solomon vanished.

- - - -

Erick stepped out of a lightning portal, down onto the rippled, cooled lava of an ancient caldera. The air was filled with mist, flowing into the space, through knife-like edges of the volcano. That mist was the way in which most appeared in this sacred space, for from that mist stepped the Relevant Entities of the Script. Erick recalled a story that Quilatalap once told about this place. It was more than the meeting space of the Relevant Entities. It was the altar in which they had sacrificed the Goddess of Knowledge, and created the Script itself.

Rozeta came forward and nodded toward Erick, and that was all she did. Today was a major milestone meeting, and the nature of it all demanded special words, and proper protocol.

As the gods and otherwise were joining the area, another person joined to the side.

Solomon stepped onto the ground next to Erick—

Erick smiled upon seeing him, because he looked a lot different, and a lot better. Solomon, unlike Erick, usually kept his dragon horns tucked away and his size human-sized. Not here, though. Solomon’s black horns, which were a copy of Erick’s, were different. They were silver, and there were only four of them, two on each side, as opposed to a true crown of horns. Or maybe he would have called them platinum? Probably. The man’s hair and beard were impeccable, and his eyes were bright platinum and focused. He had undergone a metamorphosis with his latest achievement.

He wore glowthread clothes, just like Erick, and Solomon also wore a look of happiness that could only ever be found after achieving great success. It looked good on him.

Erick grinned a bit wider, and then he nudged the man with his shoulder, saying, “You’re looking good, man. Did you, perhaps, accomplish something?”

Solomon chuckled and his own smile went a bit wider. “Everyone heard that fast, eh?”

“I didn’t hear anything too specific, except that this thing was happening right now. Your horns are out and different and your eyes are mirrored platinum instead of muddled platinum.”

Solomon’s eyebrows went up in surprise. And then he reached up and touched a horn. “… Oh.”

Erick chuckled… And then, as he looked out into the mist, his mirth faded a little.

… Surely it didn’t take this long to call a meeting? This was a space outside of time.

The Relevant Entities were still gathering, like eyes and shapes appearing in the mist. Not only were they gathering slowly, there were also fewer than Erick remembered. Erick had known that many of them had been killed during the preceding two years, but Erick had never met many of them, so his sorrow at seeing the caldera remain half-full wasn’t a strong feeling. But it was still a feeling. He mostly dealt with the gods, and the gods were still gathering, too. Rozeta was a slightly animated statue, waiting for the gathering to come to order. Atunir and Sininindi spoke soft words to the side about storms and the security of small matters. Aloethag and Sumtir spoke with each other and a half-obscured mist-person about Carnage and war and battleplans and recent attacks that had failed to materialize.

Erick asked Solomon, “What did you manage to do?”

Solomon almost answered, but he was conflicted upon what to actually say. In that moment of introspection, he looked at Erick. His grin faltered a little as he realized Erick had done something big, too. His eyes went wide and he softly, almost playfully, accused, “You did something.”

“Ambient mana collection and Paradoxing that mana into personal mana.”

The caldera went silent.

Melemizargo grinned, swooping in like a dark shadow, saying, “A grand accomplishment. Now let’s hear Solomon’s.”

Erick realized that whatever he had managed to do, Solomon had outdone him in some way. Erick smiled at that. He was about to congratulate Solomon again, when—

Rozeta raised her voice above the silence of the caldera, “Please don’t answer that yet, Solomon. We have two important members of the Relevant Entities yet to arrive, and I would save the discussions and revelations for their arrival.”

Avandrasolaro, whom Erick had not seen in a while, appeared out of the smoke. He was only half here, with his dark skin and swords floating around him in the mist, but the revived angel and former emperor to trillions of people had a weight to his words that was still deep, still real. “I move to remove all Angels and Demons from Relevant Entity status immediately.”

Erick was stunned—

But as he looked around he saw only exhaustion in Rozeta’s face and a few sneers in the audience, primarily among the angelic and demonic forces. Many in the audience simply didn’t care for Avandrasolaro’s words at all, choosing to ignore him.

But Avandrasolaro’s words were massive?

Unless...

Solomon whispered to Erick, “We’ve been asking for that for a year now. Want to weigh in on our side?”

Rozeta instantly said, “Don’t answer that, Erick. I am putting out another request for a meeting. Usually these things do not take this long to gather.”

Erick had always assumed that everyone arrived at the same time to these sorts of things, since this was mostly a place outside of time. He had ignored that usual way-of-things, though, because he was a True Wizard now, unable to be affected by outside forces unless he allowed them, and so he had needed to physically come to this place, this time. So maybe some natural magics were a bit messed up in that way. It hadn’t been too difficult of a trip, but it had been a trip, here to this spot of Veird, the only remaining part of the Original Surface of the Painted Cosmology version of this planet.

The caldera was located above the Core, about a hundred kilometers up from the upside-down world, about a hundred kilometers below Erick’s feet. As per Erick’s understanding, it would move somewhere else after this meeting, and at Rozeta’s hidden discretion.

Erick said, “I’m not in any real hurry. I am wondering what Solomon got up to, though.”

Solomon smirked, giving Erick a hint, “I got a lot of points from it.”

Erick guessed, “50 points?”

“Much higher.”

The Relevant Entities stared—

Rozeta cleared her throat. And then she made a show of pressing a blue box button in front of her, saying, “I am sending out a third demand to gather right now.”

Erick looked out among the Entities…

He realized something deep, in that moment.

Who was missing? Well the Angels and Demons were missing. Not all of them; not by a [Long Bolt]. But enough of them were missing, and primarily…

The Crown of the Host, Adavido.

The Demon King, Dinnamoth.

The two main powers and gods of the Angels and Demons were missing—

Solomon noticed, now, too. He whispered, “Shit.”

The tension in the air tripled.

The meeting was starting now, and it wasn’t on the topic that Rozeta had gathered them to discuss.

Rozeta relegated herself to what was to come.

Melemizargo stepped into the meeting, looming over a great portion of the gathering. “Every single person on the planet who has an eye to the Benevolent Sky or other prognostication powers has experienced a massive shift in everything, first from Erick, then from Solomon.

“But prior to today, in the month of Erick’s arrival and the Day of Clouds, the world has shifted dramatically, in too many ways to list in any reasonable time frame. But to name a few: Koyabez returned to real power with the Silver Surface. Erick returned with a weapon that could propagate and end the Forever War, and two gods willing to fund that eradication if need be, and which directly steps into the Forever War. Erick will be curing Kirginatharp of his Curse whenever the boy decides to lose power, meaning that the dragons of Ar’Cosmos are going to come out into the world and take over.

“And most of all: ten thousand defensive and offensive structures of Angelic and Demonic nature were erased.

“And yet, we are in a period of peace, due to the strength of Erick and now of Solomon. Erick has likely heard of the Week of Massacre on the Fifth Sphere, where ten million angels and demons fought and died and came back to die again, all to take a mountain that didn’t matter at all. That only ended because of Wizardly intervention, and now we have another Wizard back, and also calling for peace.

“But the Angels and Demons still outnumber every society we have here on Veird right now, and the return of Erick scares them.

“They have the power to sway this entire Relevant Entity court any way they wish, and I would not be surprised if they show up here, hand in hand, lying for profit and then doing whatever they want to each other, or to whoever gets in their way.

“It’s been two years with the Helm of the Host Adavido and Demon King Dinnamoth rising to true power on the backs of billions of followers, outnumbering every single one of you all here, and now the world shifts back against them. That they are choosing not to show up, this could only mean one thing, and we all know what it is.”

Melemizargo sounded correct about all of that, though Erick did not want to admit that the problem was that bad.

Erick frowned. He was not the only one.

Rozeta softly, sternly said, “I am specifically informing them that they need to show. If they retain any semblance of decency, they will show, and— Ah. Here they come.”

Two people stepped fully into the caldera at the same time. This was already a major upset to Erick, because for as long as he had known how this caldera-meeting-thing all worked, he believed the only ones able to fully manifest were those who were truly here, or those who were called to court to speak or defend themselves, or those who were the true powers of Veird. He had never seen Adavido or Dinnamoth stand where the gods stood, but…

Yeah.

Billions of followers for both of them kinda did that— Or rather, the collective power of a Living Afterlife for both Angels and Demons did that.

Where did dead angels or demons go when they died? Certainly not to the moons anymore.

The demons went to Sphere Five, to New Hell, and the angels went to Sphere Seven, to New Celes. The dead didn’t stay dead long when they were aligned to the Demons or the Angels, and if they died on Sphere Six, The Warfront, they almost instantly reappeared on their respective spheres.

It was a whole can of worms that Erick simply did not have the time to deal with in any real way, and so he hadn’t. Not yet.

If it weren’t for the constant real threat of Nothanganathor and the collective power of the ‘living’ people of Veird, then the Angels and Demons would have tried to truly kill each other, for real. They kinda were already on Sphere Six, because if they died there then they came back to life rather rapidly in the densest parts of the Elemental Vile or Elemental Exalted vortexes of Sphere Five or Seven, respectively.

If they died elsewhere on Veird, then it took them a while longer to come back.

Maybe only a day or two.

Both the Angels and Demons had necromancers and summoners and it was exceedingly easy to bring an Angel or Demon back to life, even if their souls had been partially decayed by soul magics. If an Angel or Demon was weakened too much then they simply came back to life on the Seventh or Fifth Sphere in a smaller, weaker form.

All those thoughts and more flashed through Erick’s mind as he watched Adavido and Dinnamoth stride forward, into the caldera. They glared with some sort of respectful hate at each other, and then they separated to the sides of the caldera which held their allied Relevant Entities, most of whom were insubstantial mist swirling in the gathering.

“I’ve been trying to get you two to come to the table for peace talks,” Erick said, and the caldera focused on the three of them. “Are you two trying to give me the runaround? Or did those small talks I had with your underlings make it up the chain of command, where good decisions got made?”

Demon King Dinnamoth ignored Erick and turned toward Rozeta. “Let us proceed.”

Crown of the Host Adavido also ignored Erick.

“This is not a good look for you two,” Erick said.

Tension filled the space.

Dinnamoth ignored Erick.

Adavido looked to Erick, though, asking, “If we fail to meet your lofty demands of peace, are you going to try and stuff us into those valkyries?”

“Do I have to?”

Adavido looked away from Erick, toward Rozeta, saying, “Speak your announcement, Rozeta, and know that I have 2.1 billion angels ready to leave this land today. We will abandon this world and take an out to Margleknot, and thus leave all of you to contend with these demons and Nothanganathor on your own.”

“Do it,” Erick said, instantly and before anyone else could speak. “If you have a shelter from Nothanganathor, then do it, and I wish you the best of luck.”

Silence.

And now Adavido glanced at Erick, looking for subterfuge. He would find none. Erick was serious.

Dinnamoth glanced Erick’s way as well, looking torn for a moment in only the way a powerful man could allow himself to look torn; which meant not at all, or only for effect. And then he frowned, and looked to Adavido. He lightly glared. “You would leave our home? You prove yourself as unworthy of this second life. Unworthy of Veird. Unworthy of the Element you claim as your own.” He glared harder. “Unworthy of life, and too stupid to know when your life is about to be taken from you, because We Demons have also received this offer of escape.” He looked out across the entire gathered assembly of Relevant Entities. “We’ve received an offer to escape this war and leave Veird behind. This offer came from Wraithborne, in Margleknot, and they would have us sign contracts to good terms, to help them switch over to Benevolence. We are not going to take it, because we love our home, and we will not see it eaten by Nothanganathor.” He glared at Adavido. “Where did your offer come from, Traitor?”

“I have 2.1 billion people to look after, you demon shit,” Adavido said, “The only reason you made the sudden decision to stay is because it makes you look good. That’s all you’ve ever been about; political maneuvering and the appearance of being something that shouldn’t be instantly crushed. Go to Wraithborne and be destroyed in your ignorance.”

“You leave, angel spawn,” Dinnamoth said, “Lords know we’d be better off without you. We incani could focus on actually fighting the real war against the Red, instead of the war you fight because you know no other way.”

Erick spoke, “One of you should take the offer, and in that taking you should lay this ancient animosity to rest.” Erick was calling their bluffs, and they did not like that. “Both of you should know that the Old Demons exist out there, that there are no incani, and there are no angels except in the rarest of places.” He asked Adavido, “Where did your offer come from?”

Adavido didn’t seem to want to answer that—

“The Celestial Observatory,” Dinnamoth answered. “They hope to restore angelic power in that land.”

Rozeta stood strong as she spoke, “We will win this war.”

Adavido spoke to everyone, “We should all leave before they lose this war for us all! Those two, right there, are the ones on trial.” He looked to Erick and Melemizargo. “Staying here means our people are fodder for the crush.” He said to everyone, “The illusion of power of Erick’s Return is just that; an illusion. He will be Erased by an enemy that is a trillion times his size, while Melemizargo will die for the supreme hubris of himself. We should all escape while we can. While we still have lives to escape with.”

Dinnamoth said, “Weak steel.”

Adavido rounded on the man, his wings of swords swinging wide—

Dinnamoth flared with black light—

And Melemizargo put his foot down between them.

Space moved.

Dinnamoth ended up to the far left, while Adavido was to the far right.

Melemizargo said, “Children, children. You’re both weak steel. That you feel this way at all in this dawning of this new age means that you aren’t worthy of bearing the Mantle of your power. So! Avandrasolaro!” Melemizargo gazed across the caldera at the wispy form of an angel who had worked for a peace between angels and demons for tens of thousands of years, while he was a demigod. “Do you wish to become a demigod once again? To challenge all angels for their power? To lead them all into a new age, and new Cosmology, when we win?”

Adavido looked absolutely furious.

Dinnamoth looked thrilled.

Avandrasolaro instantly said, “Yes.”

The world flashed Dark.

Erick wasn’t sure exactly what had happened, but what he saw was Avandrasolaro striding out of the mist, wreathed in the brilliant gold light of divinity, standing taller than Adavido, and with more swords to his wings—

Adavido said, “The angels are leaving Veird.”

And then Adavido left, stepping away.

Dinnamoth said, “We’ll work with Avandrasolaro.”

A lot was happening, and all of it was based on ten thousand things that had happened well outside of Erick’s sight and knowledge.

Erick added to the happening. “I would like to rapidly lower that year-and-a-day thing, Rozeta, and give easy accretion of ambient mana to all who sign on to a lasting peace treaty between Avandrasolaro’s angels and the demons.”

Solomon said, “And if we’re going to lose at least half of our mortal population, then my all-mana-generation-multiplier mini-Lifeblood Hearts can go out to whoever wants them, too.”

Chaos.

- - - -

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- - - -

Oozy Stormcaller sipped sweet wine from a cup made of frozen stone. The vessel was cold in his hands, providing a wonderful sensation that differed so much from the hot sun on his body, while his feet were deep in the warm sands of the beach, the grains between his toes. He wiggled his toes. It was all so different from the centuries of life as an ooze. This was so much better than the world of Veird. Life was good.

Everbless tossed around in the waters ahead, his avatar having fun like only a tentacle-thing could. He called out, “Watch this, Oozy!”

Oozy held up his drink. “I’m watching!”

Everbless leapt up out of the waters a good several tens of meters and then came back down. That simple action caused a tsunami to roll over the beach, but Oozy didn’t let the waves hit him. It was fine. The kid was having fun. When Everbless resurfaced, he said, “I did that just with my body! Not with any magic!”

“I saw! That’s pretty good control!”

Oozy didn’t mention how the beach —except for where Oozy held— had been washed away, revealing the black metal of Fenrir, the True God’s Throne. Oozy would have to put back all that sand if he wanted a nice beach… But that was fine.

Everbless was happy for a moment, his tendrils flopping around like only a giant creature could flop. And then he paused, his tendrils stilling, snaking through the waves.

He looked at the beach. “… Sorry. I washed your beach away.”

Oozy said, “Don’t worry about it.”

Oozy waved a hand and the red lightning cloyed across Fenrir. Sand erupted, and Oozy was back on dry land, while a second tsunami ripped out of the ground and bowled Everbless over. Everbless giggled like a monster and a child at the same time. It was all an act, though. He pretended at being a kid because it disarmed people.

The most recent victims of Everbless’s were way up the mountain, impaled on spikes, surrounding the base of his World Tree body, growing on the inside of Fenrir. Oozy had no idea who those guys were, only that they had come to see the giant Red World Tree, and paid for their curiosity with their lives. People just showed up on the inside of Fenrir all the damned time for some reason. Didn’t they know this was a battleground?

Well whatever!

Everbless roiled up to the beach, his long tendrils slapping to the sides of Oozy in an obvious threat display. The tentacled avatar loomed, though he knew better than to actually blot out the sun. The ‘kid’ wanted to kill Oozy, and he had tried several times, but Oozy was beyond him.

Oozy made a point of looking Everbless right in his many eyes, and then at one of Everbless’s tendrils that was getting way too close. The thing was as wide as Oozy—

It whipped at—

Red Lightning sliced.

Half of Everbless’s avatar body turned into fish meat. He recoiled back into the waters, screaming.

Oozy let him scream.

Everbless roared at him, “When are we going to kill Veird and take mom back from the Darkness?!”

“When the boss says so.”

The entire surface of Fenrir vibrated as Everbless’s avatar and his body both roared,

“ASK HIM WHEN!!”

Oozy made a point of getting off his butt, to stand on the beach, and then to look up at the sun. Nothanganathor was a squiggle of black upon the sun’s bright surface, almost invisible. But Oozy could see him just fine. Oozy got down on his knees, and prayed, “Oh merciful Nothanganathor, shining deliverance from Darkness, do we have a timeframe for attack, please?”

All the sky shook again, but softly. Controlled.

“When the fruit is ready, we will pluck the garden.”

Oozy got up off his knees and said to Everbless’s avatar, “There you go. Not yet.”

“But those Dark Gods put up that bubble an hour ago! Who knows how much time they’ve had in there!”

“And when they come out, thinking themselves ready, the real war can begin. Nothanganathor wants to take them for everything they have, Everbless, and they’re still making stuff.”

Everbless tried attacking Oozy again.

Oozy splattered the avatar completely, and the beach, the ocean, and the air was filled with blood and sparks. It was quite lovely, really.

A minute later, Everbless popped back into existence, saying “I’m bored!”

“Bah! Lazy child!” Oozy pointed at the sky in practically every direction. “Look at that bare black surface over there, and over there, and over there. If you’re bored, do some more terraforming. You have control of those magics! Go make some more ocean or whatever.”

“BAAAHHHH!”

Everbless vanished beneath the waves again.

And Oozy went back to drinking his drink…

First he had to find his drink, though… And it was gone. There were the remains, right there. Or a fragment of the stone cup that might have been the remains of his drink. Might just be a rock.

“Eh.” Oozy pulled a new drink out of the air, along with the person who had been drinking it. That person was a dragonkin of some sort —not a normal Veird dragonkin at all— and then he was dead. Oozy flicked the blood off of his free hand and sipped the drink… He made a face. It tasted like bitter seasalt. It seemed he had gotten too much blood in the drink, and the base drink was horrible. “Nope.” He tossed the drink aside. “Let’s try again.”

Oozy eventually found a good drink but he had to move down the beach to get away from the new pile of bodies.

Oozy relaxed as he walked down the beach, feeling the sand under his toes and the sun on his shoulders, shining in a sky of complete Red.

Some more trees popped out of the sand here and there, as Everbless got back to playing god.

Life was good.