It wasn’t long after he’d bribed Xixi with his Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge, sparing some for Zanth when he made his way over like a bloodhound scenting a trail (it was uncanny), that the gathering wound down to the part where Xixi got to open her presents in front of everyone.

Joram sat back, Tillia seated next to him, and watched as the presents were brought up to her one-by-one. He was a bit glad that his wasn’t the first one to show up, as tradition seemed to dictate that the parents were first, then guests in order of esteem, and finally the “most important” people. Like the Matriarch, or the fiancé.

Speaking of, Joram caught sight of Grammy slipping in from a side door close to the pile of presents. He was impressed with her stealth techniques. She managed to not only slip a present into the pile, but also slipped in to sit on Joram’s other side without anyone noticing. Sure, he was off to the side so it was easier to miss someone slipping in, but he was also no longer way at the back where most people wouldn’t see them anyway.

‘Good stealth,’ he sent with a grin.

‘I try,’ Grammy sent back with a faint smile. ‘I’m glad that I won’t have to preside over any funerals in the near future.’

Joram just grinned as he watched Xixi open her presents. They weren’t anything crazy, as most of the attendees were from the outer clan. Not very well off. They did, however, make up for it in thoughtfulness. She received several robes that were cut large enough for her to grow into, a few hair accessories like combs and clips, but also a few natural elixirs.

Well, medicinal herbs that could be eaten just as they were, not needing to be first refined by an alchemist. Joram gave the people who gave the useful gifts a better mental evaluation. Sure, he hadn’t exactly broken the bank with his gift, but it was thoughtful. Also, he didn’t want to make people wonder where he’d gotten this or that.

He’d just pass along a few bottles of medicinal pills to her later, out of the limelight.

The person in charge of bringing the gifts finally found Grammy’s gift and nearly fell over. She quickly re-checked the remaining gifts, then quickly rearranged the order they’d be presented in. She also got points for putting him second-to-last. He’d have to remember to thank her for her courtesy later.

It was only after the next present was brought over that Tillia finally noticed Grammy sitting with them and nearly swallowed her tongue as she was about to say something to Joram. He reached over and gave her a pat on the back as he sent, ‘It’s all good, don’t make a fuss.’

Tillia merely nodded, took a long draw from her cup of punch, then looked back to Xixi.

Joram grinned again. He was sure that if something like this had happened last year, that she really would have needed the Heimlich Maneuver or something.

Wait, hadn’t they renamed that technique a while ago…? He mused, suddenly distracted, but came back around as his gift was brought up for Xixi to open.

He noticed not a few eyebrows going up as it was announced that the present was from Joram, but also when they saw the fine wooden case.

Xixi took her time admiring the simple box. Yes, he’d done a bit of decorative carving along the edges, but nothing too fancy. Again, to avoid the questions.

At length, Xixi opened the lid and slid the cloth aside to reveal the statuette laying inside, and her eyes grew wide. He also noticed that Aunty and Uncle both softly gasped as they, too, saw the statuette. With her mother’s encouragement, Xixi held it up for all to see, eliciting a similar reaction from most of the crowd.

Yes, some of them were on “Team: Not Joram” and thus silently scoffed, but most seemed to be impressed with what a five-year-old had given as a gift.

“Did you make this Joram?” She asked, looking over to where he sat.

“Just for you,” he said with his second-best smile and a thumbs-up.

That got more than a few reactions, ranging from surprised to disbelieving. He didn’t really care. Yes, it was attention, but it wasn’t like it was his best piece which would have definitely caused a stir.

For her part, Xixi made her way over to him and gave him a Great Big Hug, again thanking him for the gift.

That managed to pull out his first-best smile as he tenderly held her.

“Happy birthday,” he said, finding that it was harder to speak than he’d expected. This was significantly harder than it should have been, so he just kept quiet as Xixi finally let go and danced back to her parents, box in one hand, statuette in the other.

He had to close his eyes then, the sight bringing with it too many memories for him to handle right then.

Through [Touchsight], he saw the woman bring over Grammy’s gift, a small box suspiciously similar to what he’d received last year.

Sure enough, the little box contained an Authority Token, Grade 3. Not a few whispers broke out just then as the rumour mill went into overdrive. Well, it would as soon as the guests left. For now, Joram could practically read the speculation on their faces, each one wondering what it meant, and what they’d do about it.

He shrugged all that away, along with the memories of other sweet girls being overly excited for simple, yet heartfelt, gifts.

- - - - -

*1343.04.28*

Joram had also attended Zanth’s birthday, but it was significantly less eventful than Xixi’s, much to the relief of Aunt Selussa and Uncle Vulen. Not that he could blame them at all. He, too, preferred quieter gatherings where entitled people didn’t try to push their weight around.

That said, he’d gifted Zanth a carved replica of a katana. He’d noticed that Zanth was quite taken with swords, and he even seemed to be learning techniques related to swords and developing Sword Intent.

Yes, that was a thing. Much like the various Laws, Sword Intent was something that could be studied and learned. So, Joram had found a straight branch of Lightning Willow, treated it, then carved it. He had a feeling that Zanth would develop an affinity for the Law of Lightning, so he hoped that the bo-ken would serve him well in his practice. It was a full-sized sword, so it should be useful even when he grew up.

One last thing that he’d added to the sword besides the alchemical treatment that hardened the wood, was to psionically strengthen it further using [Matter Manipulation], making is harder than steel in the process.

Zanth had high fived him.

But in the meantime, Joram had continued producing piles of pills, practicing, refining his technique so that he’d be able to tackle Tier 5 pills soon.

M2 and Avi had continued their forays into the wider world, but keeping a lower profile than they had at their first auction. That not only allowed them to go about unmolested, but it also allowed them to go from shop to shop relatively unnoticed, buying up stacks, bundles, and bushels of various ingredients that Joram needed to continue his manic pill refining.

They also dropped by various auction houses, selling most of the pills Joram produced, thus allowing them to continue their spending spree.

They’d also found that lode of Sky Nether Jade that Grammy had told him about, then promptly excavated the whole thing. That had given Joram a bit of a project, but for later.

M3 was still working on the scanning device, now just fine tuning the sensors.

Then, as Joram was refining his latest batch of healing pills- Tier 3!-, and looking forward to his parents arriving any day now, he felt a jolt go through his mind and body, causing even his realm to shake slightly.

“What was that?” He murmured, putting a hand to his head as he closed his eyes and withdrew to his Knowledge Star.

‘Oh, crap.’

That was all he could think to say as he watched one of his Cores, one of the black’ish ones, falling closer to his Knowledge Star.

It must have been on such a gradually declining orbit that he’d somehow missed it during his weekly check-ups.

*Rumble!*

Well, guess it doesn’t matter when it started, just that it’s about to get torn apart by the Star’s gravity, he thought as he mustered his psionic might in an effort to push the Core into a stable orbit.

It felt like he’d walked up to a bus rolling towards him and tried to stop in with an outstretched hand.

About as efficacious as sneezing at it.

*Rumble!!*

Now the shaking of his… inner self and his realm were getting more severe, actually causing him physical pain as the shockwaves being released by his black Core, as it drew closer to the Knowledge Star, hit him. Things were getting more painful by the second as he tried to figure out what to do.

He hadn’t read anything remotely similar to what was happening to him, so he didn’t have any wisdom from previous generations to go on. No, this was all new. Including the gathering ball of energy being formed by the mana being pulled towards the Knowledge Star. Which was odd.

Normally, something being pulled into the gravity well of a larger object just fell into that larger object. But the mana was just… forming another ball between the two orbs. Yes, the Knowledge Star was at least one hundred times the size of the Core, but that drawn-out bit of mana was still being… pressed between the two, and that was what was causing the bursts of energy that were causing damage to him.

In desperation, Joram began pulling mana from his other Cores in an effort to use that energy to help push the falling Core into a stable orbit. It was much like trying to pull sixty-three dogs into line when all they wanted to do was explore all the things! He felt like he would be pulled to pieces by the strain.

Eventually, he managed to draw a thin thread of energy from each of the rest of the Cores and used that to start pushing back on the falling Core.

* * * * *

Avi laid Joram down on his bed in the villa, silently commanding a few droids to get some things for her. Namely, a cloth and basin of water, one of the finished omni-tools, and the psicrystal of M3.

M2 had dropped as soon as the first tremor had rocked the realm, cutting their expedition short. She’d immediately snatched up M2’s psicrystal and shifted to Joram’s realm where she found him unresponsive on the ground, nose bleeding.

That hadn’t been a welcome sight. Frightening would have described it better. Either way, she’d scooped up Joram and had gone to the villa, where she was now waiting for the droids to return. She wasn’t, however, idle. As she waited, she manifested [Mend Body] in an effort to keep him from bleeding out, but also to help keep his body in one piece.

Who knew what ridiculously dangerous thing he was up to? She just knew that she needed to keep him alive.

* * * * *

Why can’t things ever go smoothly with shit like this? He asked himself as he noticed that even though he’d managed to stabilize the orbit of that Core, he’d managed to cause every other Core to get pulled into degenerating orbits.

It had been relatively easy to stabilize their orbits when he’d first pulled all of his Cores into orbit with his Knowledge Star, but now that they’d all grown…

Well, they were much harder to nudge back out of the gravity well of his Knowledge Star. Which was causing that terrible shockwave, now “waves”, to increase in frequency and magnitude as the mana pulled from each Core was beginning to coalesce around that first ball of mana that had been drawn away.

… Which made him very nervous as he felt just how powerful the energy waves were becoming as the various colours of mana swirled together while being pressured by the gravity of the Star and the Cores.

If he wasn’t wrong, the pressure on that ball of mana was already many times what had been needed to condense his Cores in the first place. He could feel the extreme forces being applied to it, and it was now outright scaring him.

What to do? I can’t pull more mana from my cores, otherwise they’ll just continue falling into the Star. So, then, I need mana from the outside, he concluded, then tried to send a message to Avi and realized that his Network was once again down.

‘Well, crap.’

* * * * *

Avi felt the Network collapse and knew that it was even worse than she’d feared.

Shortly after that, she felt the mana in the room suddenly begin to flow towards him. Looking around, it soon became clear that the draw was getting stronger and stronger, but so was the strain on his body.

Avi saw faint cracks appearing on his body, even fainter light flowing out from them. With a thought, she manifested [True Metabolism] on him, giving him outright Regeneration to keep his body from exploding.

“Bring all the Tier 2 mana crystals!” She shouted out at a passing droid. It dropped what it was doing, which was dusting, and ran for it.

“I know you need mana, but anything stronger than Tier 2 and you’ll just kill yourself,” she murmured as she stroked his sweat-soaked brow. “Don’t die on me again.”

* * * * *

Joram was now questioning every decision he’d ever made. He’d thought that drawing in mana from outside his body would help alleviate the strain on the orbits of his Cores, but it hadn’t worked. If anything, the added mana was fueling the growth of the Rainbow Ball between the Cores and the Star… at an alarming rate.

The Rainbow Ball, as he’d started to referring it, was now half the size of his Star. Sure, the thought had occurred to him to just stop drawing in more mana, but that had only reduced the repulsion force that the Rainbow Ball seemed to have on the Cores, allowing them to fall closer to the Star.

So, he was in a bit of a bind.

On the one hand, he could finally find out what would happen if a Core fell into the Star…. On the other, he’d find out what would happen when the Rainbow Ball grew too large to comfortably share its orbit with the other celestial bodies.

Then a fluctuation caught his attention, something different.

The mana he was drawing in wasn’t… pure? There seemed to be something different about it, something… powerful, and solid.

After a very brief moment of pondering, as he didn’t have anywhere near the time he would have liked, he came to the conclusion that he was feeling “Earth Mana/Qi”. It fit everything he’d read about it. But what the heck was he to do with it?

He had plenty of Base Mana, the Tier 1 stuff, but he was now getting a bit of a surplus of the Earth Mana and was thus getting, well, panicked as the in-flow of mana was actually increasing, ballooning the Rainbow Ball to close the size of the Star.

* * * * *

“You, retrieve the adamantium. You: scale #22, and you: feather #13. You, get sample #283 of the Sky Nether Jade.” she shouted at the gathering droids, all coming together for instruction, but to also begin building barriers and energy shields in case Joram… didn’t make it.

Avi could feel the crazy amount to mana, and funny enough, psionic energy, building up in Joram at an alarming rate.

The only thing that she could think to do was to go into Joram’s “Head Space” where his little office was located, and manually initiate his assimilation routine. She hoped that the adamantium would toughen his body enough so that it wouldn’t break apart nearly as fast, while the scale and feather were also meant to increase the toughness of his physical body.

She also hoped that the scale and feather would increase his body’s ability to hold and assimilate mana, that it would also increase his mana capacity so that it would give him more time to do what he needed to do to get himself out of this mess. And finally she hoped that if he could assimilate the Sky Nether Jade, his production of psionic energy would be able to keep up to the draw needed to keep him healed.

That said, if it didn’t work, she’d need to rebuild the villa, and likely most everything in the realm as the resulting explosion would be… epic.

* * * * *

He’s somehow managed to push the Cores away from the Binary Stars at the centre of his mind, but was now even more stressed.

The Rainbow Ball was now a Rainbow Star that dwarfed his Knowledge Star and was now beginning to pull psionic energy from said Star, adding to the chaotic swirl of colours in the Rainbow Star.

And it was still growing as more and more mana was pulled in.

On another note, he’d managed to push all of the Earth Mana onto his Cores. Because, why not?

If he was going to have to deal with it, he’d may as well make it useful as one of the steps to advance into Tier 4 was to be able to sense Earth Mana and begin adding it to one’s Core. Each Core now looked like a planet with an atmosphere. The Earth Mana hadn’t quite been condensed into a liquid, so it floated about on the surface of each Core like clouds. Well, clouds behaving like Jupiter’s Eternal Storm, that is. The “solar winds” were strong enough that it set each Core’s atmosphere spinning about.

Cloudy, with a chance of meatballs, he thought with a wry grin. It was true: if he failed, there’d likely be bits of him blown into the upper atmosphere that would eventually need to come down…

Then he felt a jolt run through him. Not the kind that came from the increasingly regular pulses from the growing Rainbow Star, but from something else.

He then felt a… solidness run through him, allowing him to weather the energy pulses better.

Then another jolt ran through him, but before he could register what had changed, another one came, then another one.

His eyes widened as he felt the next pulse hit him, then he marvelled at the fact that that latest pulse had felt like a gentle breeze ruffling his clothing.

What’s going on?

Then his eyes widened as he noticed his Knowledge Star visibly growing, now fighting with the Rainbow Star to keep its energy to itself.

The Rainbow Star almost seemed alive as its draw of mana increased, once again ballooning in size, but becoming visibly unstable in the process. It was all that Joram could do to direct the Earth Mana out towards the Cores. One good thing about the pulses was that each one helped push the Cores further away from the Binary Stars while also flattening the Earth Mana onto the Cores.

Well, it was a good run of things. I hope that this doesn’t mess with my [Astral Seed] too much; I’d like to re-form sometime soon, rather than much later… He thought as he watched the Rainbow Star begin to quake.

There was one final pulse, the Grand Poobah of Pulses which looked a lot to him like what many graphic artists had rendered to represent a Super Nova.

The energy wave hit him like, well, a Super Nova, sending him careening away, consciousness lost amongst the turbulence.

* * * * *

Avi felt the build-up of energy, an alarming spike that sent out waves of energy so powerful that they disintegrated Joram’s bed and knocked her into the shielding surrounding them both.

Glad that she didn’t have a meat-bag brain to get rattled, Avi [Teleported] away just in time to see the bubble turn bright white. She glanced over at the shield-generators and saw their displays indicate an imminent failure to contain the blast.

Thinking fast, Avi used her omni-tool to disable a section of the shields right at the top, allowing the pent-up energy to blast out, vaporizing everything in its path.

Yes, vaporizing. As in, the matter turned into a gaseous state upon contacting the white pillar of destruction that stretched to the sky. Then, what hadn’t been atomized was promptly combusted, then also blown away.

She really hoped that the droids would be able to take care of any flaming debris and prevent the realm from going up in smoke. She had, after all, spent a thousand years making the place into a cozy home for them to stay in.

Avi shook her head, now looking back to where Joram should have been. The bubble-shaped shield was still all white, bright as the sun.

She tried feeling out her connection to Joram, but only found static.

Well, that’s actually a good sign. The first time he died, there’d been nothing to even attempt to connect to,” she thought, trying desperately to see the silver lining here.

She was sorely afraid that she had somehow managed to screw Joram over, hard. She’d felt that his mana-capacity had increased after manually starting the assimilation process with the scale and the feather, then also felt his psionic energy regeneration nearly explode after the Sky Nether Jade had been absorbed. She’d been intensely grateful that she’d started with the adamantium, as she feared that he’d have exploded then and there had she started with the other materials first.

After another ten minutes of watching what she imagined the heart of a star looked like, the light began to dim. One part of her didn’t want to look, but knew that if he hadn’t survived that there’d likely be nothing to see. The other part of her was desperate to find him alive and… relatively, well. She had no illusions that he’d be remotely OK, but she still hoped.

The light finally dissipated completely, but still left the air inside the… fishbowl forcefield hot enough to roast a bull, nevermind the dense smoke swirling around inside as the temperature variance, and vacuum, created quite the sight. Any other day, or even under any other circumstances, Avi would have admired how the air currents flowed around inside the forcefield, but not today.

Today, she blasted an empowered [Cleanse] out towards the forcefield. It was a “spread” effect, so the power just flowed up and over the edge of the forcefield and cleaned away the remaining smoke…

Revealing a very naked, and very bald, Joram laying on the ground. Well, the bottom layer of the forcefield anyways. She took note of his faintly glowing skin, looking as though it was cooling metal. She also noted that as she approached the forcefield, her holographic hair started to rise.

Avi looked down at herself, then gave herself a pat on the back with how well she’d created her “body”. It even reacted appropriately to free-floating electrons.

Avi then shook her head, a habit gained from Joram, and focussed back on Joram himself.

As she looked closer, she noticed little arcs of electricity occasionally jumping from one splayed finger to another, sometimes jumping all the way from a hand to a toe.

“Hmmm, this could complicate things,” she mumbled to herself, then looked around again.

The villa was a write-off. What hadn’t been instantly destroyed had instead been blown away, pieces now scattered throughout the small realm.

Avi pulled up a map on her omni-tool which showed the positions of all her droids, then used that data to get an idea of how far-spread the damage was.

* * * * *

*1343.05.05*

“We’re home!” Sulia called out as she threw the door open to their family apartments.

Ivaryn just shook his head as he followed her in, glad that he didn’t have to actually carry their luggage.

“Joram!?” Sulia called out as she noticed the renovations that had been made to their place, specifically when Tillia came out of a new door.

“Hello Madame, Sir,” she said politely as she bowed to them.

Ivaryn noticed a few things then. One, Tillia was way too polite for anything good to be happening. Two, her cultivation had increased amazingly. He could feel that she was now in the early stages of Tier 2, quite the improvement from when they’d last seen each other. Which caused him to worry when he noticed the bags under her eyes. Those were hard to get after you’d stepped into Tier 2.

Lastly, there was no Joram.

“Tillia, it’s good to see you,” Sulia said with a warm smile as she approached her, then gave her a light hug. “There’s no need to be so formal, you’ve taken care of Joram in out absence. You’re practically family.”

Tillia blushed slightly at that, bringing colour to her slightly pale face. Ivaryn wrote it off as Tillia being embarrassed with the compliments and warm greetings, but couldn’t quite shake a growing sense of unease.

“Where’s that little scamp?” He asked, looking towards Joram’s room with a grin that was a bit forced. “We’ve been dying to see how he’s grown these past few years.”

Tillia gave them a nervous look and glanced towards the front door. Ivaryn idly followed her gaze and spotted the Matriarch stepping through the doorway. It wasn’t unusual for Sulia’s grandmother to come by to check up on her favourite granddaughter, but what was unusual was her expression. Or lack thereof.

Well, even that wasn’t unusual given that she normally went about with an unreadable expression. But when visiting Sulia, especially after she’d given birth to Joram, Tatia had… thawed.

But as Tatia stepped closer to them, both he and Sulia exchanged a look. Both knew that something was amiss when Tatia had that mask on.

“What’s happened?” Sulia asked, taking her grandmother’s hands in hers, now trying very hard to keep it together.

“It’s Joram,” she said, looking Sulia in the eyes. “He’s had another… incident, and we can’t find him anywhere.”