Chapter Thirty-Five

Being so close to her twin, the bond was stronger than ever. So strong that it felt like she could piggyback off of it and look deeper. However, instead of simply diving in, she sent an image through their bond for permission despite sitting mere centimeters away.

Almost like two people texting each other while seated at the same table. Unlike those people, she sent images to Ione as well, so she wasn’t left out.

Elysia received a giggle as well as an image giving her permission. While ignoring the giggle, Elysia delved into the bond traveling down the short tunnel with her mind before popping out into a network of shining blue green veins.

She felt she could delve deeper, sending a shiver through her, realizing how dangerous it would be to have a bond with someone she didn’t trust. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case with her. She trusted her family, and she knew they did the same, despite being annoying at times.

To stop herself from getting distracted, she focused on her target. The beautiful blue-green sphere rippling with power but somehow looking peaceful, like a calm ocean that could turn violent at a moment’s notice.

Elysia zoomed in on the core, trying to look past the outer layer to see what differed between their cores. The warm waters welcomed her as she sunk her senses deeper within. Upon reaching the center where her divine essence resided in her core, she stopped and scanned.

Sereia was right. She didn’t have two cores instead, divine essence mingled with her regular essence if one could even consider her regular essence regular. Divine essence permeated throughout her core, touching everything within.

As Sereia explained, she could vary the degree of divinity when she used her magic. Now if only she could figure out how to do the same. Unlike her core, which had a blinding spot at the center, she felt like she could float around in Sereia’s core without issue.

Despite the temptation, as the core felt so relaxing, she returned to her own body, having learned all she could. Curiosity sparked, causing her to send images to Ione, asking her for permission to check out her mana system. She doubted it had much similarities to theirs, but more information couldn’t hurt.

Of course Ione accepted, so Elysia dove into their bond, finding herself in another system a moment later. She blinked her mental eyes in confusion as she took in the odd system. The veins were like theirs, but the colors of circulating through the vein network threw her off.

Violet was the primary color, taking up over half of the essence she saw, but it was far from the only one. Sereia’s blue-green essence and green lightning like essence were the next two most common, but beyond that it was a mess of colors, most of which much weaker than the primary three.

Ione must take control of any essence she absorbed. She wasn’t sure if that was healthy, but it didn’t seem to cause any damage.

Another odd thing she noticed was a lack of core. Instead, the essence remained in her veins, constantly cycling. Maybe that was why she couldn’t use magic outside of her body. If she stuffed so many differing energies into a core, things may get nasty.

Upon looking deeper, she even spotted divine energy, though, unlike Elysia or Sereia, it didn’t seem to have an elemental attunement. Probably for the best. She doubted attuned divine energy would play well with other elements.

With nothing else to learn, Elysia returned to her body once more, this time focusing on her own core. Why was her divine essence segregated? There had to be a reason. Sereia didn’t have any issues, but maybe water essence mixed better. Was she forced to segregate her essences because of her element? No, she refused. If Sereia could do it, so could she. She just needed to figure out how.

On a whim, she grabbed a strand of divine lightning, but instead of pulling it out of her core, she stopped in her regular lightning. The divine essence fought against her control, but she clamped down on it as she watched closely how it would react. Oddly, as if oil and water, her regular lightning moved out of the way, making room for her divine lightning.

While frowning, she grasped a strand of regular lightning headache forming as her control strained, but it didn’t stop her from pushing them closer. It was like trying to force two children who hated each other to be friends. The closer the strands were, the harder they fought to escape her control.

Worry nagged at her that she may be making a mistake. What if touching the strands together set off a bomb blowing up her core? Was it worth the risk? Sereia’s divine and regular essence coexisted, so it should be possible she just had to get them to mingle a bit. A brief introduction couldn’t hurt. At least she hoped it wasn’t.

Decision made, she pushed the strands together, forcing them to touch. In an instant, her control ripped away from her, but instead of repelling back to their respective cores, they remained where they were.

However, she discovered a worrying effect of her actions. While they didn’t explode, the divine essence gobbled up the regular essence. At first that was all she noticed, but upon looking closer, the divine strand seemed slightly different, as if the regular strand left a mark. Enough of a change that it didn’t return to her divine core.

In fact, it seemed right at home, surrounded by her regular essence. That gave her hope. However, that hope turned to fear as that strand went on the move. It gobbled up every strand surrounding it as if it was Ione on the hunt.

Soon the blinding bright strand became dimmer with a stronger violet color, or maybe it was always violet but it was too bright to make out the color. Only when it ate every bit of essence surrounding it, leaving a small void did it stop, satisfied with its meal.

What did this mean? She succeeded in forcing her divine essence to live in her regular core, but at what cost? She didn’t feel any different, though to be fair, the amount the divine strand ate was a tiny fraction of her essence. Or did it really eat it? Maybe it merged. Kind of like how Ione took control of the essence she absorbed, but on a smaller scale.

Before she went any further, she sent images displaying what happened to her family asking for opinions, but they appeared just as confused as her. She thought they would scold her for her experiments, but that didn’t. Instead, they seemed almost curious what would happen if she continued, which gave her the nudge to grab another divine strand and regular strand and force them together.

The outcome remained the same, with the divine strand absorbing the regular strand then going on an absorbing binge before calming down.

Instead of continuing, curiosity struck, prompting her to grab one of the merged strands, finding it a little stronger than when she used twelve strands at once. Much weaker than a divine strand but also much more controllable.

Did she want to convert her entire core, though? It would mean she would lose the stupid powerful divine lightning bolt, but was that really a loss? What was the point of such a powerful attack if she drained herself every time she used it? If she needed a stronger attack, she could chain multiple of these strands together.

The bigger problem was she already had issues with control, not power. It probably wouldn’t solve her issues if she converted her entire core into stronger essence. Though maybe it would. If she unified her entire core, maybe it would give her the stability to improve her control. At the very least, she wouldn’t have to deal with holding back her divine essence every time she wanted to use regular lightning, but would she ever regular lightning if she merged them?

Unable to decide, she asked her family with images. In response, she received a pair of curious elementals asking for permission to watch through their bond. Why was she the cautious one this time? She expected them to tell her she was making a mistake, or at least urge caution, but they seemed more curious about what would happen instead.

With a sigh, she gave them permission, immediately feeling to presences within her. She shivered, feeling exposed as if she ran down a public street naked, but since it was her family and they already gave her permission to peek at them, she squashed the feeling and focused on grabbing another pair of essence strands.

Elysia felt a flurry of activity through her bonds as the process of merging and absorbing rampage happened. When the strand stilled, she asked them again for opinions, but if anything they seemed almost insistent that she continued as if they saw something she didn’t.

She wasn’t sure how she felt about being outvoted in her own body. Well, not outvoted, as she felt like the neutral party despite being the one who would be affected.

Since her family seemed in agreement that she should continue, that was what she did. If nothing else, it didn’t seem to have a negative effect on her, at least as far as she could tell. She doubted all three of them would miss something, so she should be safe.

Or maybe they were all blind, but there was no way she would allow anyone she didn’t trust completely to see so deep. Those ancient elementals probably could tell her, but that was just asking for trouble.

Despite her worries, peer pressure won out, so she fed divine strand after strand, each one eating its fill, then joined the others. Soon her core became much less densely packed, but the same could be said about her divine core.

A problem soon presented itself. The divine strands in their gluttony out ate the supply of regular strand but seeing no point in stopping, she continued until she ran out. Now the much less dense area where her regular lightning used to reside consisted of the new supercharged strands, while her divine core was almost dim enough that she could make out individual strands.

Elysia stared at the new distribution of lightning in her core at a loss for what to do next, at least until Sereia sent an image of her forcing a divine strand and the new strand together. Since the regular lightning didn’t because issues during the merge, she figured the new strands wouldn’t either. If anything, they should merge easier.

Just in case, she grabbed a divine strand and pushed it toward a somewhat isolated strand, hoping to minimize the damage if it failed. Fortunately, as they hypothesized, the divine strand slid into the new strand without issue, causing it to glow brighter, but not much else. Another change was there was no absorbing rampage following the merge.

She paused and stared at the strand joined by her family, waiting for something to happen, but nothing did. The strand practically sung with divinity but appeared much more stable, as if it was content with its accommodations.

Curious, she grabbed control of it, finding it effortless to move almost as easy as a single regular strand, causing her core to pulse in excitement. Was this the true form of her lightning? The more she looked at it, the more she thought that might be the case. It just felt right.

Unable to resist, she merged more divine strands, soon finding she had an equal amount of each strand, only solidifying her feeling that this was the right decision.

As the last divine strand left, the now depleted divine core said core disintegrated, leaving a void in her core for a moment until she merged the last pair together.

The moment she merge them, a ding sounded in her mind, followed by an overwhelming feeling of completeness as the new uniform strands spread out evenly throughout her core.

Power flooded through her body, sending warm tingles everywhere, turning her muscles into jelly. She relaxed back into Ione, basking in the warmth as her mind drifted off into blissful sleep.