I waited as Len washed up with the remainders of our water. There was a brook nearby where we could refill, so water wasn’t an issue.

Again, I peered into Len’s stomach where his core lay curiously. It was free of impurities, and holding within it magic potential. How he could manipulate it, I didn’t know yet, but we would cross that bridge when we got there.

Hah! Another human expression. They were all so lovely!

Once Len finished washing up, I questioned him excitedly. “So… how do you feel?”

He stared at his hands before directing them to a random direction. “Fire!”

Nothing happened.

Though the magic in his core stirred, nothing that could be observed by the human eye happened.

“Other than that?” I said as I interrupted his continuous attempts to conjure fire.

“Well,” Len shrugged as he skipped lightly on his feet. “I do feel a little lighter, and faster. My eyesight seems sharper, and my mind also.”

That was… great! A little underwhelming, but definitely a step in the right direction. If there was a step up from this point, then the body only had more improvements to go. Perhaps immortality was the most obvious next step from here?

Absently, Len picked up a stick and began to wave it with purpose. His footing was deliberate, efficient and swift, and every chop and thrust of his stick spoke of… skill.

What was he doing?

Len caught my stares and flustered, he tossed the stick away and blushed as he looked down.

“What was that?” I asked curiously.

He looked towards me in surprise. “They’re sword forms,” he explained. “My grandma taught me before she died. I never really had a talent for it, I think, but the lessons stuck. We only really have one sword in the village, and grandma picked it up after a group of bandits were slain by a dire bear.”

He seemed wistful at the memories of the stories that Lenuru had regaled him with, stories from a woman who was alive just a week ago. I felt a pang of sadness at his plight, though I was surprised by how little longing I felt towards Lenuru. At the joining of our essences, it almost seemed that I had no reason to miss her. She lived on in my spirit after all. I could not miss what was not gone from me.

“Impressive work,” I told him. “With a real sword, you would be most formidable.”

Len grinned sheepishly. “You’re just flattering me,” he said.

“No, I am serious.” I said as I patted his shoulder. “You’re a dashing young hero!”

“Sto~op,” Len hid his face with his hands.

“Well,” I said, looking up at the sky through the leafy foliage overhead. “We’re burning sunlight.” Another great expression, one I heard everywhere in the village. Time wastage was a sin when there was always so much to be done in the village. “Let’s get going. How far is this settlement?”

“We would arrive a little after dusk,” he revealed. “Maybe a bit faster. I’d like to see how far I could push myself.” I would like that, too. We still had to test his limits.

Before we left the encampment, I picked up and washed the dire wolf core, keeping it with me. It thrummed with more energy, now, but it now also had a great amount of impurity. If I found a way to extract it for pure energy, I would still have to find a way to deal with that unwanted element.

I still hoped for a more efficient and timesaving method of impurity removal than ceaseless breathing exercises or near-death brushes with magical beast cores.

Against all odds, we encountered another magical beast on our journey. It was another dire wolf, though this one exuded an aura of grief and malice. I wasted no time rushing for the dire wolf, and before it could react, I stabbed my fingers through its skull, extracting its beast core straight from there.

The shell-shocked Len took almost a minute to regain his composure. “T-that is an unusual wound,” he said. “You should burn the carcass so we seem less suspicious.”

I nodded and complied, igniting the dire wolf. It took a while before all the blood and moisture was completely vaporized from its body before it finally caught fire and the rest of its dried husk joined the earth as ash.

We picked up our pace towards the village, and we made good time, appearing well before dusk, despite Len’s words. He really did push himself, too. He was panting by the end of it, sweating profusely as well. I handed him a water skin which he drank from greedily.

“Welcome… to…” he caught his breath soon. “The lowland village closest to our village,” he smiled wryly. “We aren’t particularly big on names in this area. Leave that to the big cities and kingdoms. Life in the mountains is much simpler. It’s a life where we adopt sprites as mascots, and they suddenly become real Gods,” he joked.

I smiled wryly at his antics.

We passed through the ‘entrance’ of the village, which was really just where the main path through the place began. Len led me to a tavern and I tried to ignore the stares of the locals. I really was too different from these people. I was still half a head taller than their tallest men, which definitely did draw eyes.

The innkeeper met Len with a jaded attitude that was almost toxic. “What’ll it be, stranger?” Absently, she glanced over at me, before looking back at Len. Catching herself, she focused on me and was taken aback. Against Ruman’s wishes, I was attracting a lot of attention.

“Some food and some information,” Len began, revealing a few copper coins in his grasp. The innkeeper looked at the coins greedily, and me fearfully, before simply shrugging.

She put a plate of food on the counter, and we sat on the stools. I simply smiled at her while Len was busy eating.

“Ain’tcha gonna eat that?” The woman’s eyes fell on the plate with some discontent. I slid the plate towards Astra.

“The boy needs nutrients to grow big,” I explained. Technically, Len was out of his growing phase, so the statement was a blatant dishonesty, but she wasn’t my people, so I could still lie to her.

What a novel feeling that was.

“Like his father,” the innkeeper hazarded with an uneasy smile. “Say, I’ve never seen a guy as big as you. There more giants where you come from?”

“Yes,” I responded. That would make things easier, if I made her think that I was normal, if only in another place. “There are many tall people where I’m from.”

“Huh,” She said. “Well anyway, what’ll the information be?”

“I didn’t notice a smithy on my way here,” Len said in between bites of his food. “Did they move?”

“Yeah, he did,” she sighed. “There’s talk of war in the big city, so he went to a closer town called Alquist while the going was good so he could make good on war-orders easier. Swords will sell for a lot in the coming days.”

“What a sneaky bastard,” Len muttered, before looking towards me in shock and turning red in embarrassment. I just waved it off.

“Yeah, I’ll say,” the innkeeper said, ignoring our by-play. “Anyway, the town is half a day westwards. Just follow the setting sun if you wanna brave the trails at night. It’s not particularly unsafe.”

That was helpful.

Well, if she was just handing out information, then…

I fished out the core which I recently extracted. “How much does this sell for?” I held it in front of my face.

“A core, eh?” the innkeeper grinned deviously. “I’m a great haggler, so I’ll give you the market price and I’ll make my money back by upping the price when I sell it to the incoming caravan. How does a silver sound like?”

“How many pickaxes does a silver buy?” I asked.

“Ten,” she responded confidently. “Though you could easily bump that up to thirteen, not so easily to fifteen if you’re an especially good haggler. You’d have to buy from several smithies, though. The town you’re going to doesn’t have a shortage of those, though, so you’ll be set.”

“Thank you,” I said, smiling warmly at her. “You’ve been exceedingly helpful.” I placed the core on the table, and after rummaging through the purse in front of her stomach, she placed the silver right next to it. I took the coin and she took the core.

This was my first transaction, and I’d like to say it was a resounding success!

Len finished his plate, and then mine. He appreciated the chance to make up for his lost breakfast, and his more powerful body definitely did require more nutrients for upkeep. If this would be a reality for everyone, then we’d simply have to figure out a way to boost food production.

With a smile and a nod, I bade my farewell, and the innkeeper did the same, a radiant smile on her face.

Once we were finally out from the village, Len looked at me in awe. I enjoyed the trickle of essence which poured into me before tilting my head questioningly.

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” Len said. “You are a God, so you certainly do have the charisma of one, but that innkeeper was being way too friendly. A full silver for a single item is quite a steal, and she did not lie about the prices of the pickaxes. She was going out of her way to help you!”

“I’m aware of the effect I have on women,” I said smilingly. “I still don’t think I’ve impressed upon old Katarina that I cannot marry her daughter, no matter how lovely she is.”

“That’s old Kat for you,” Len chuckled. “She’s thick-skinned enough to try matching her daughters with a literal God. Though… why can’t you marry her?” He asked.

I didn’t really understand why he asked, but I tried explaining myself to the best of my ability. “It may sound patronizing, but I do consider everyone in my flock to be akin to my children. I am a parent to all. That includes old Kat, and her daughters.”

Len nodded in understanding. “Oh, I see… that would make things awkward. You shouldn’t hold it against them, though. We all do love you, but we are not entirely sure of the nature of our relationship. You just… up and appeared one day, and then we built a temple for you. Maybe you’re more akin to a king for us, rather than a God. The villages are not like the Cities, where the worship of everything aside from the Crown is banned. We still hold onto our beliefs, but after all these decades, we barely know what they are. The name Astra is apparently from a fable that my grandmother only heard bits of from her own grandmother whose mind was beginning to fray with age. The word Astra stuck to her, and all else was forgotten. It’s… it’s a travesty, but now we have you. It feels like we finally regained a bit of our heritage. We’re so very grateful.”

I let us both linger in silence, pleased with his gratitude and thankful that I meant so much to them. I picked up my pace slightly just to see if Len could keep up. He did.

Soon enough, we were jogging lightly, continuing at a pace that I was surprised Len could keep up with. It wasn’t especially fast, but for a normal person, it suggested years of physical conditioning and a good diet which promoted muscle growth.

Ah, yes… I would have to explain to my people the importance of a balanced diet. With Verdant Green, that would become much easier as well.

We stopped a little so Len could catch his breath. I observed as he took deep breaths, cycling more magic into his core, albeit in a… slow manner. His core could still take more magic, yet his intake was exceedingly slow.

Could the process be improved upon? More efficient breathing? No. It was the density of magic in the air which was an issue. If there was a method to locally increase the density of magic ready for intake, maybe a way to… create a vortex, akin to that ancestor that lived so many eons ago, or maybe like the magical beast core which Len had eaten…

…how to go on about that?

While we walked towards the town, I was locked in thought, imagining all the ways in which I could tackle my problem. When we were in the vicinity of the town, I had used my own magic to try and project the magic structures in the human body into the air before me, an invisible shimmer that only a very astute human could perceive. The structures were still much too complex and interconnected for me to copy perfectly, but the major meridians and the core were more or less a functioning replica.

I reached a breakthrough when I decided to test out one of my many, many theories by reducing the size of the magic inside the core. The magic condensed with some effort, and the surrounding ambient magic stirred, but did nothing else.

I began to rotate the dense magic inside, creating a small vortex. The surrounding air stirred even harder, becoming denser around the outline of the faux human body!

Success!

The method was simple, then. Increase density, and then create the vortex. This would increase the effectiveness of breathing exercises by a factor of ten!

This would still not be very helpful for those with high levels of impurity, however. The only way to manipulate internal magic this accurately would be by not having any impurities, or at the very least, a low amount of it. I still hadn’t found a way to forego the beast core method of cleansing, but with the rate of how I was solving these problems, I didn’t particularly worry.

…Was I being overconfident? Maybe I was taking on more human qualities than I had expected?

The town was finally ahead of us, and in easy walking distance. Unlike the other villages, this one was walled, wooden palisades surrounding the dozens of houses within. Our path led to a large gate that remained open.

“Unlike the other places we’ve been to,” Len began, “This one actually has a name. This is the town of Alquist, the capital of all mountain settlements. There are direct trade routes to the City of Neulea from here, and they boast wonders of technology. They can till entire fields in a mere hour, with wooden contraptions pulled by oxen!”

That… didn’t sound particularly complicated. “We should eventually buy our own oxen,” I said. “It would save you all a lot of work.”

Len looked around to make sure we were alone. “With the magic minerals, we’ll be able to afford it, too.”

In silence, we walked. Len had a spring in his steps, and so did I, come to think of it. My recent discoveries would do so much to help everyone out, I could barely even begin to lay my plans in motion.

“Astra?” Len said, looking up to me, eyes filled with vulnerability.

“Yes, Len?”

“When you… you said you were like my… father… it’s true, right?”

“Yes,” I repeated, with the same sincerity as when I said it the first time. “I am. You don’t have to worry about-“

I stopped as Len hugged his arms around me tightly. Love and devotion poured out from him in near-suffocating waves, translating directly into power, my power. “Don’t ever leave us.”

Gently, I returned the hug, resting my head on his hair. “Never.”