This new world is born of rust, water, and stone. These elements have gathered together to fill a small fraction of the void, stealing air from a gas world that inhabits the nearby space, and lit up by a massive fire vortex that takes the place of a sun in the sky.

There are as many worlds without a ‘sun’ as there are with, so I should feel lucky to have this warmth here on the first world that I’m to truly conquer.

Now that I think of it, Earth really is a pleasant place when compared to most of what’s out here. That’s not to say that terrible things don’t happen, but it’s stable in a way that I find to be rather rare outside of the Unified States of Mana.

It’s just a shame that Earth is so pitifully weak, and the average lifespan so horribly low.

I could declare myself ruler and not even a nuke could stop me at this point, though I see no reason to go so far. Humanity is just so completely unprepared against the universal power that is mana.

Vii’s eyes flutter awake as she breaks out of mediation, only having spent a few minutes focusing on the task. My own heart pounds harder than hers, as I sigh my relief. Nothing has gone wrong.

“I’m fine,” Vii grumbles, her lips turning up as she slowly opens her eyes. “You don’t need to stare at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m dancing on a bed of thorns, and you might have to dive in to save me at any moment,” Vii says. “I already told you, this is safe. I’m not going to get hurt. I know what I’m doing.”

She sounds genuinely bothered, though she’s not expressing it as fully as she might.

“How is your mana?” I ask.

“I absorbed it all,” Vii says, puffing up proudly, her lips turning up in a bright smile as she holds out her hand for the next dose. “I told you that I’ve gotten it working. We can finally catch up to you again.”

“Just…” I bite my tongue to keep from saying the wrong thing. “I love you, you don’t need to push yourself.”

“I do,” Vii says. “We all do.”

I try to find the right words to say, but I have nothing. She holds out her hand insistently until I hand her another dose of mana-drenched food. She sucks on the small candy, a new invention of one of the gremlins, and closes her eyes in quiet mediation.

“She has to be twice as strong already,” Nel whispers, her eyes wide. “She’s pushing herself too hard.”

“We all are,” Adler says, shaking her head. “She’s not wrong, either. We can’t rely on Kyra for everything. No, I just wouldn’t want to.”

“I just don’t want anyone getting hurt because of me,” I say, my mind returning to that scene of Eshya lying bloody on the ground. “If you push too hard, you could get hurt. I’ll protect you.”

“Kyra, stop being an idiot,” Nel says, settling in beside me. “I’ll always accept you for who you are, but we are a team. You can’t do everything on your own.”

I press my lips tight together, and Nel reaches down to hold my hand tightly.

It’s all because I was too weak. I was too weak to prevent what happened to Eshya. I was too weak to save the students that came with me on the ships. I was too weak to save us from despair when Red first stole our ship and crashed it into a wild world.

They’re pushing themselves because I’m too weak.

Nel tightens her grip on my hand, her fragmented eyes meeting mine with the glimmering reflection of the soft candlelight.

“We will survive this together,” Nel says. “It is how we’ve made it this far, it is how we will make it through what’s to come as well. Together.”

“You’re starting to sound like Shen,” I say.

“She is wise beyond her years,” Nel replies, waiting with me as Vii slowly returns from her mediation.

“The stress isn’t so bad yet,” Adler says, “You’re not the only one concerned that we are pushing ourselves too hard, but I haven’t noticed any beastly traits from anyone here.”

“Beastly traits?” I ask, quickly turning on her.

“I don’t mean anything by it,” Adler says, holding up her hands defensively. “I was talking with some of your experts, and what I refer to as beastly traits is something that she notices too, but with a different term. It’s just… a set of behaviours that are associated with poorly managed stress.”

“So long as that’s all…” I relax, nodding slowly. I can somewhat understand what she’s referring to, welfare officers are concerned about mental health as well, but their solutions tend to be rather unhelpful.

“That’s good to know?” Vii says questioningly, sitting up and breaking from her meditation. “It’s taking a bit of effort to settle the dense mana currents. I think it’ll be easier to take a break and get used to my new mana density. Even concentrating time isn’t helping me figure out how to control the currents.”

She seems more exhausted than can be justified with just a short session of mediation.

“Can I go next?” Eshya asks a little too politely as she slides in close to us.

“Vii?” I ask. “Are you ready to use that sort of magic on someone else?”

She nods, sitting right in front of Eshya and focusing hard on her. When the elf has received a dose of mana, she sinks into meditation with Vii, the two of them working to grow powerful enough to stand by my side.

I can’t let time slip me by, so I focus on my own meditations, trying to figure out how to more efficiently condense mana directly into second-stage crystallisation. The theory makes sense, but just like with anything, practice makes perfect.

Everyone takes turns in mediation with Vii, and even I work on it, though it doesn’t do much to help me with my current problems. The others, however, have progressed considerably, consuming and converting more mana in one session than in the last month.

While they’re all settling into their new power, we sit at the table for a light lunch. A few servants come by to deliver some nature of massive crab. It’s amazing, but there’s a little too much on the plate for us.

“So, what are our plans for today?” I ask.

“I’m intending to introduce our adopted insect kids to a few other children around the town,” Nel says. “Beetle and Roach’s own little swarm should soon be grown up enough to be let out around town. I’d like to give them all a chance to get to know each other.”

“We don’t have a daycare or a park for the kids to play together?” I ask.

“Not yet,” Nel says. “I’ve been looking into the notion, but the entire city is much too busy and there are other more important things to attend to at the moment.”

“Vii?” I ask.

“I want to practice my Skills in a real battle,” she says, literally bouncing in her seat. “If I use them on you guys I could accidentally hurt you, so I want to find something evil we can kill.

“I need to know that everything I’m doing means something, that I’m changing things, and that I’m getting stronger. I need to grow strong enough to follow you into the violent turmoil of the future. Maybe even…” She shakes her head before finishing the thought.

“Ah, mostly that,” Eshya shrugs, sitting with one knee up to her chest as she gnaws on a crab’s leg. “I want to fight as your equal, and I want to see if it helps me remember what I’m meant to be feeling. Going on a hunt might help.”

“I’ll go too,” Adler says. “I also want to adjust to my newly developed mana form, but also… I feel like I need to face the violence that we do here. I’ve come to accept that violence is a natural part of life, but I’m still bothered by it. I’d like to see the creatures we fight.”

“There’s no time like now,” I say. “Red did find a cavern with some interesting monsters to hunt. It would be a shame for someone to get to them before us, no?”

Eshya nods, a small smile creeping on her face as if all her uncertainties have faded away at the promise of violence. A fight, simple and straightforward, it’s always been her way. With her emotions stirred into a confusing turmoil, she’s challenged with the issue of finding faith in me again.

As that’s what it was that allowed her to act so free before. She trusted me to take responsibility for the violence and cruelty we commit, it allowed her to focus on training and refining her role in our relationship. I need to regain her trust and earn her faith, not only as her lover but as her leader.

“Let’s go,” I say again, standing ready to face whatever stands in our path.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The tunnels are dark and damp, rust-riddled waters drip down along the walls, pooling into puddles that could be shallow as a hair or deeper than an ocean. It is with great care that we cross through this space, watching every shadow and staring into the abyss that lies ahead.

Yet, we walk not as prey but as hunters, seeking to claim this land and all its treasures for ourselves. Even a monster of twice our power would be laid low by our combined might, today I’m not uniquely powerful. Vii has practised her time magics, and Eshya has ten times the mana she used to have.

Our scouts warned of traps, of a beast that has grown fat and lazy from the prey that slips through the cracks to stumble into its home. Yet, this is still its territory and we must be careful.

“So we expand for the mana?” Eshya asks, “To grow stronger? To become immortal?”

“So that we might slay every monster that would harm us, and keep time itself from tearing us apart,” I explain my reason for why I fight. “I’m greedy and selfish like that.”

Eshya nods slowly, a smile starting to form on her lips. It warms my heart, but there’s still that distance between us that I’m struggling to cross.

“I think I get why I was so attracted to you,” she says, shaking her head slowly. “You’re an idiot.”

“I’m not sure which of the two of us you mean to be criticising with that statement.”

“There’s nothing wrong with an idiot,” Eshya says. “Actually, there are things that only an idiot can do.”

Silence hangs between us for a little while as she considers her next words, her expression has relaxed a little. Removing her from the crowd and the city was a good idea. She’s much more herself when she’s alone with us, it’s just that she used to be much better at completely ignoring other people.

“Only an idiot could stand up to the welfare officers and fight back against them,” Eshya says. “Only an idiot could take a stand against society’s expectations, with all the silent threats that come with it. Only an idiot could say with genuine determination that they want to live forever in a universe that bends to their will.”

“Well, I guess it’s okay if you call me an idiot, then,” I laugh.

“Do you know why?” Eshya asks, her smile edging toward darkness as she looks into the tunnel ahead. “We aren’t legendary heroes.”

“Ah… you kind of are…” Vii starts, but Eshya cuts her off.

“Okay, Vii, maybe, but from my perspective, we’re not. Do you know how many people rebel against society? Who go so far as to use violence like what we’ve done, trying to start our own thing with stolen land and resources?”

“Not many?” I ask.

“Wrong,” Eshya replies. “Lots. Maybe one in million will take it to this extreme, and with countless numbers of people in this universe, that ends up being a lot of people.

“Do you know what happened to them?”

“They’re dead,” I answer.

“The idiots are dead,” Eshya nods her head. “We are idiots. The one in a billion, of that one in a million, that actually make it this far. I fell for you because I stumbled on another idiot like me.”

“So, we’re the 0.01% of germs that handwash doesn’t kill?” I ask.

“I… yeah, let’s go with that,” Eshya chuckles to herself at the thought. “We’re the lucky ones who make it… no, we’re the lucky ones who made it this far. Tomorrow…”

My own sense of immortality, which has been pushing me through all this time comes to mind, but I press the doubts back down. I know that I’m not immortal, but if I was distracted considering my own death every second then I wouldn’t get anything done.

The metallic ferns that surround us shiver in light movement as we pass through the gap into the wider cavern. A cold breeze cuts through, reaching us where we stand. Dark mists fill the cavern, like fog made up of dark oils, shining slightly with deep purple shimmer.

It’s a strange place, and I’m not sure what to do with it when we’ve properly claimed it for ourselves. Whatever we want to do with it, we’ll need to clear out the native life before we can do much with it. It’s simply too dangerous to leave wild beasts to hunt as they will.

“Kyra, I’m glad that you saved me back then, back on the ship the very first time I met you,” Eshya says. “I’m glad to be here, even if everything is a mess right now. I’m sorry that… I’m sorry I was weak enough to get into this situation.”

“It’s not your fault,” I say.

“It’s not yours either, but I can tell that you still feel like it is,” Eshya says. “You’re still thinking of me as delicate, and I wish I could say that you’re wrong. Even with this small fix, I’m still not as strong as you.”

“Eshya…”

“It’s hard to feel anything but frustration right now,” she says. “Frustration at the situation we’re in, the welfare officers who screwed us, at you for coddling me, and at myself for needing to be coddled. For wanting to be coddled…

“I’m scared,” Eshya admits.

“I’m scared of it happening again. Of losing myself, and my feelings, my memories, everything that I am. What if I actually died? What if the me I am now is a different me? What if I don’t deserve your affections, I certainly don’t feel like I can fairly respond to them.”

A net of silk falls from the sky toward us, I try to summon flames and annihilation to ward it away, but the threads are too many, and it’s like trying to break a net by stabbing at it.

Eshya doesn’t hesitate to leap off the ground, drawing her sword mid-flight. She slices through the net in a neat pattern, moving faster than ever she catches segments of the net to wrap the silk around the blade near her hilt.

“I’m scared,” Eshya says, standing by my side and staring up into the dark mists. “In none of my memories did I ever seem scared, but today, I’m terrified.”

She leaps up into the darkness above, blind to the monster hiding up there. I know for I see through her eyes, and I see nothing. She thrusts into the ceiling, spinning about and knocking a dog-sized spider down to us.

She kicks off the ceiling and smashes down on the beast, impaling the spider into the earth and twisting her sword, releasing a burst of explosive mana to finish the beast.

“Something is wrong with me,” she says, her hands trembling as she stands over her prey. “I don’t know what to do…”

I reach out and take her hand, before leaning closer and embracing her closely.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Stats and Skills

~Mana Form:

Current mana crystallisation:

-0.4% at 78,231 (Stage 2)

-99.6% at 60,892 (Stage 1)

Current mana volume: 30,304 / 30,304 shards

Mana volume at Stage 1 crystallisation (Max. mana volume):

Kyra: 30,271 shards

Kyra’s armour: 20,777 shards

Kyra’s throne: 1,109,298 shards

~Forms

Mana Canon

-Annihilation Heart (Adapted)

-Blood Fuel (Adapted)

-Bone Magic Storage (Adapted)

-Nail Shifters (Adapted)

Dancer

-Flash Nerves (Adapted)

-Quick Perception Mind (Adapted)

-Burst Reflex Muscles (Adapted)

-Layered Space Muscles (Adapted)

Turtle

-Rebinding Tissue (Adapted)

-Catalyst Sweat Glands (Adapted)

-Repulsive Skin (Adapted)

-Prehensile hair (Adapted)

-Fatty Tissue Blood Storage (Adapted)

Investigator

-Wide eyes (Adapted)

-Wide ears (Adapted)

-Sharp nose (Adapted)

Misc.

-Clean bowels (Adapted)

-Mana Drive (Adapted)

~Favourited Skills:

Magic:

-Annihilation Magic (Customised)

-Fire Magic (Functional)

-Space magic (Broken)

-Force magic (Functional)

-Ice magic (Broken)

-Wind magic (Broken)

Movement:

-Hand-to-hand casting (Mastered)

-Mana surge movement (Customised)

-Stealth (Functional)

Senses:

-Eyes of an Empire (Customised)

-Combat Awareness (Mastered)

-Watchmen (Functional)

-Hidden bug (Mastered)

-De-tagging (Mastered)

-Anti-stealth sight (Mastered)

Special:

-Spirit Transformation (Broken)

-Conformity (Broken)

-Training mana form (Functional)