His eyes burned with fatigue, his limbs were limp and weak, his hip and arm thrummed with pain that had never gone fully away. His ribs and forearm shook with intemperate sensitivity. Even the shirt over his stomach seemed to stir it into action.

Ranvir heaved in another pain, the fabric rustling over his torso clawing at the skin underneath. With an effort, he rolled his head up to look at the old man before him. Kasos crouched in front of the bench, notepad and pen in hand as he scribbled carefully.

Another worming knife of pain writhed its way into Ranvir’s guts up from his hip. The injury had been unable to heal properly, as he hadn’t been able to retrain it. He closed his eyes for a moment, squeezing a weak fist as hard as he could, waiting for it to be over. With a slight sigh of relief, the pain faded, and he opened his eyes, annoyed to find his head had slumped over again.

Kasos' loosely billowing top would’ve revealed his stomach almost down to his navel and the entire left side of his chest, if not for a tighter black shirt underneath that crawled snugly up to his neck. His pants were of a similar loose style as his top, but needed no help to obscure his skin.

His long hair was gathered into a braid at the back, but was both thinning and graying. Though Ranvir knew he was as old as Ione, he looked near a decade younger than her. Not that he dared put an age to the elderly translator.

“Alright,” Kasos muttered, “I think I’ve got all the important terms down,” he made eye contact with Ranvir as he leaned back and seated himself, “Do note that a few of the things we’re going to talk about doesn’t have a word in your language. If there’s something you don’t understand, please tell me, as it could be important later on.”

Ranvir licked his lips and said, “Okay,” in Fiyan. His language had come a long way, mostly in the sense that he was conversational most of the time now. Unless someone spoke too fast, or sometimes if they got a little too ‘relaxed’ when speaking, which the kids who found it funny when he floundered often did. Though, he had been surprised to find that he learned faster when he was willing to feel stupid, which the kids would do either way.

“The basis of what’s wrong with you is more than your tether-space being broken,” Kasos began his lecture and Ranvir tightened his concentration on him. Kasos’ gaze flickered to Ranvir’s eyes for a moment before continuing. “Your Fundament, that is the base, the solidity, on which your soul rests, is lightly damaged whenever you advance a new stage. Going from pre-stage to… say Dagger creates that you instinctively—whether guided or otherwise—patch over with your spirit. However, your Fundament was still recovering when you rapidly advanced twice more, and as you explained it the second one—“ he consulted his notes, “Flesh, was a significant step forward, beginning your Concept, your Ideation, which reshapes your entire Fundament.

“So it cracked and broke,” Kasos pulled a piece of paper from his notepad and ripped it, “But not fully. In part your Ideation, kept it together, kept it strong enough for you to survive. But it’s leaking, bleeding slowly,” he inched the paper apart. “But lucky for you, we can put a Fundament back together—unlike this paper.”

“So,” Ranvir muttered, brows furrowed as he kept up with the old man’s lecture, “What are we going to do about it?”

“First is understanding that mana, or energy, differs from your spirit, though they’re not unrelated,” Kasos replied, holding up a hand and summoning a ball of shadowy water to hover above it. “This ball is made of shadow and water energy, but it’s not real. If it comes into contact with a spirit, even just the overflow, the mana will start to fall apart…” A look grim concentration came over Kasos and a ripple passed over the murky liquid. His furrowed concentration lasted long moments, sweat starting to pebble on his temples as the orb changed.

Ranvir frowned and leaned forward in his wheelchair, despite it leaving him shaking and struggling to not fall over. Pain spiked up his hip and arm where he braced himself. The ball hadn’t changed visually, but something about Ranvir recognized it as more… real? Solid?

“This is Second Order energy,” Kasos said, slightly out of breath, “For all intent and purposes, this is the same things as the wood under your ass, or the grass growing from the ground. It will not decay when it touches someone else’s spirit, because it’s made from the same stuff.”

“The same source,” Ranvir muttered, leaning back as his stomach started to cramp. “So we’re made of Second Order?”

“Yes. You might have heard of some First Order beings on your plane, though they likely wouldn’t manifest fully into the world as they would be vulnerable. They’d be in symbiotic, or parasitic, relationships with a host.”

“I’m sorry?” Ranvir asked.

Kasos shook his head, “It likely doesn’t matter. We need to teach you to expand your vision beyond your tether-space, to encompass all of your Fundament. Until then, we can’t fully know the damage and you cannot fix it.”

“Me?”

“Unfortunately, if I tried, I’d just kill you,” Kasos cleared his throat, “Most people experience slight breaks or minor injuries to their Fundament over their lifetime, like a scratch from a cat’s claw on your forearm. It might take a while to recover, but it’s not really an issue. However, growing a hand back is a bit of a bigger endeavor.”

“So you’re saying I’ve done the spiritual equivalent of losing my hand?”

“By Nysea’s grace,” Kasos said, giving him a friendly smile, “You’ve been decapitated. We need to grow you an entire body.”

Ranvir slumped down in the chair, his hands quivering, “Oh…”

“Luckily for you,” Kasos said, continuing to smile, “I’m plenty strong enough to help.”

“That’s… nice.”

“Now,” Kasos stepped closer and put a hand on Ranvir’s shoulder, “I’ll need you to dive back into this tether-space. You’re going to wait for one of the bricks you’ve been making to fall and you’re going to follow it. It might be a little tricky, but I’m sure you can manage it.”

Ranvir nodded, taking another deep breath that stretched and scratched at his side, “Okay.”

It took him a few tries to enter tether-space, returning to the desolate place that had once been his sanctuary from the troubles of his day-to-day life. The cracked and broken structure of his tether, hanging petrified in the air, the walls that crumbled before his very eyes. Moment by moment, brick by brick.

Ranvir grit his teeth and found a stone that was starting to pull away. He rushed over to it and over th— he slammed into the wall of the space. Despite it being mostly gone, he was still unable to pass beyond. Drawing back, Ranvir frowned, looking at the wall. Maybe it was the way he thought of himself as in the space? He felt himself as physical, but…

Kasos said to expand my view, but he wanted me to follow the brick… Ranvir focused on the next one to fall off, this time trying to mentally follow it. Then he tried to distance himself, taking the distant overview he’d often used to perceive the entire space. It still didn’t work.

Follow the brick, Ranvir repeated to himself like a mantra, as he tried grabbing onto one. Follow the brick, he tried to gain an angle and look out over the space. Follow the brick, he closed his eyes and pressed his palm against one. He knew it was going to fall, but he kept contact for as long as he could to the exclusion of all else, specifically his surroundings.

As he lost contact, Ranvir gritted his teeth and opened his eyes, only to find himself elsewhere. He was on a crumbling platform. Shattered and broken stone was all that remained of an area maybe nine by nine meters. Enormous cracks, thick as his forearm crawled across the stone. A brick fell next to him and puff into dust on the stone before siphoning through the cracks.

Above him loomed a storm, thick with clouds that seemed on the precipice of rain. The covering hung low in the space, partially obscuring the remnants of tether-space, which hung in the air like a lost ruin. Gusts from the storm ripped and tore at Ranvir’s form, which had returned to its previous healthy physique and was dressed in an academy uniform. He grit his teeth and forcibly honed in on the hovering construction.

Ranvir mentally returned to tether-space before journeying again. This time with his eyes open. Then again, without touching a brick. Then again. And again. And again.

He blinked as he left tether-space, or rather his Fundament, settling back into his chair. All the cracks and shattered stone seemed to shift and alter to his senses until they became an aching hip, weak limbs, a sore side, and an aching head.

“You’re back,” Kasos said with a smile, “That’s good, you learn fast. Next, I’ll need you to replicate it purposefully, without crutches. You’ll need to be adroit in traveling your Fundament before we can move forward.”