August worked at the hole over the next ten minutes, not quite able to lose himself in the monotony as his mind twisted itself into a loop. Haiko left again, her care for the containers temporarily finished, but this time she headed towards the rest of the group as Kalter and Rittan returned to the camp, dragging the last two trees with them.

It bothered him that he was struggling to dig a hole while they’d managed to finish such a larger task, and other than the sweat clinging to either of their skin, they looked almost entirely fresh. It made him more aware of his own weakness, or maybe it was simply easier to connect with it with the solidity of his self-perception already so disturbed.

Uncomfortable, August leant his rapidly deteriorating shovel against the furnace and picked up the [Efkini Core]. The protrusions were still present, but with two casts left and the rate at which it grew, he knew it wouldn’t be able to fix itself yet. He closed his eyes, feeling how the mana of the [Tame] spell moved through his fingers as it twisted into shape—[71/80].

The black material clinging to the cube shifted beneath his fingers, the protrusions gathering together at the eight corners of the cube and leaving the protruding chain spikes untouched. It stopped growing, leaving the tentacles clawing at the air with thick nodes that almost looked like fingers—the entire thing looked like a grotesque art piece.

The mess of black cords compressed slightly under the pressure of his grip but retained its overall shape when he stopped. He placed it back on the log and left it there, turning and checking the furnace again. The seventh layer still hadn’t made any significant progress towards drying, but he was relatively sure it wouldn’t be much of an issue to start the next one.

The entire tower was getting smaller in diameter the higher he went, so each layer weighed less and was less of a burden on the overall structure as he went. He tracked the sound of footsteps approaching him as he started compacting the eighth layer.

“Did the axes work out?” August asked.

The Voithos carefully approached, looking at the ground between them to judge the distance, and stopped just outside of his range.

“Very much so,” Rittan said, “They work significantly better than the smaller ones.”

August scanned the area, checking where the others were, and found both of them sitting together by the huts. The pile of Sadapples he’d given to Haiko were between them as they stopped for a food break. He turned back when Rittan’s hand appeared within his mind, held towards him with his palm up. August glanced down at the hand, spotting a matching blue fruit held within his grasp.

“Thank you,” August said, taking the sour hand grenade.

August forced himself to take a bite, attempting to swallow it without allowing it to touch his tongue—he wasn’t quite as successful as he’d hoped. He did another check to make sure they wouldn’t be interrupted and then took the chance afforded to him.

“Rittan, I was thinking about what we were talking about last night,” August said, stretching out the name in an attempt to buy some time. “Specifically, the whole immortality thing.”

Rittan took a bite out of his own fruit and nodded, clearly unbothered by the topic.

“I realised that you never actually told me how old you were,” August asked. “Unless that’s a taboo subject or something.”

Rittan paused in his chewing for a moment.

“Not at all. I believe I was two-hundred-and-three on the day of my decommission,” Rittan said, pressing the back of his hand against his mouth as he swallowed. “The year in which I became aware for the first time is shared by roughly one-fifth of all Voithos.”

August studied the Voithos for a long moment. If he was telling the truth, then that meant that Rittan was older than every single human that had ever lived—and that was before he’d even figured out what the number was in Earth years. One year on Gaia was roughly worth three years on Earth—a little less if he was trying for accuracy. That put Rittan somewhere around five-hundred-and-fifty years old.

“One-fifth?” August asked, but his mind was still stuck firmly on the ridiculous number.

“Due to the numbers involved, the complete creation and integration of my kind took roughly five years,” Rittan explained, “There was supposedly a much smaller release performed a decade earlier, but I’ve never personally met any of the Voithos who were involved, although several of them were particularly renowned.”

“They could make a hundred thousand Voithos per year? Manufacturing people on that scale is just—” August said, stretching to find a word that made sense of it. “Insane.”

Rittan seemed content to finish his lunch while August attempted to regather his thoughts, but it was a struggle. It wasn’t until Kalter and Haiko both stood up that he managed to find any sense of focus. His window of opportunity had faded, although he hadn’t even been close to figuring out how to ask Rittan about his view of the world.

August packed the last of the clay down, finishing off the eighth layer, and checking off one of his tasks for the day. Four layers per day still seemed like the best rate to allow it to dry properly—he really didn’t want to risk the whole thing falling down and having to start all over again. He brushed his hands clean of the mess that had accumulated on them and then turned back to Rittan.

“I’ve almost finished taming the cube,” August said, rounding the furnace. “Once my mana regenerates, we can start thinking about summoning.”

August reached down and picked the [Efkini Core] back up by one of the black tendrils.

“Thank you,” Rittan said, smiling. “Your earlier question has given me an idea on who we might attempt to recover.”

“Yeah?” August asked.

“Indeed, but it’s something we should discuss as a group first,” Rittan said. “As great as my ideas usually are, there may be better options.”

“Humble man,” August said, voice dry. “Moment of truth—let’s see if this actually works after all.”

August focused on his hand, dumping all but a tenth of his mana into the spell—the taming bar maxed out, hitting the cap of [80/80]. The tendrils grew again, spreading outwards into eight mushroom-like nodes that looked as if they were forming the beginning of the outer shell.

“There’s certainly more of that black substance if nothing else,” Rittan asked, visibly curious. “Did it work?”

“I can say with absolute certainty that I have no idea whatsoever,” August admitted, “Because I don’t have enough mana to use [Analysis] on it yet.”