Charles held the back of his burned hand against the snow, cooling the overheated rune. His body had just barely gathered enough mana to offset the cost of the blink spell a minute earlier, and he was still recovering. The channels in his right arm felt ravaged but serviceable for the moment. If only barely, he would need to avoid casting spells with that hand for a couple of days.

The mana channels would heal and be stronger for it, but it had been close. Thankfully, the runes that covered his body, while they looked to be made of silver, weren’t actually metal. Or at least he hadn’t thought they were, normally they acted nothing like a traditional metal would.

Yet, the rune on his hand had had gotten white hot just like metal would have. After it cooled down it had gone right back to being just as flexible and supple as his normal skin. The stuff was odd.

Either way, it wasn’t something he wanted to try out again anytime soon.

Next to him, Charlotte was staring blanking up at the sky. She was still alive, thankfully, but he didn’t know how bad the damage to her was.

Supposedly, the potion could heal anything, but mana channels were special. Not to mention, she didn’t have the excess mana production he did to prop her up. There was no telling if the potion supplied the needed mana in this instance, or simply kept fixing the damage incurred.

The last time he had given mana to someone, they had been in a party together. He had no idea if he could still do it, without being in one. Not that he was going to let it stop him from trying. This was his sister, and he would do anything to save her.

Same as he would for Alli, Kira, and any other person he considered family or a close friend.

Charles kept his injured hand in the snow, shifting it around as everything inevitably melted. With his other, he placed it on Charlotte’s stomach and cast a basic healing spell. One of any unfocused healing spells’s functions was to examine the patient for damage first, and that’s what he was using it for now. He needed to know her condition before he did anything else.

What he saw was good and bad at the same time. The potion was fixing her channels and the rest of the damage the spell had done to her. However, she had virtually no mana left inside her body whatsoever. Everything she was producing was being taken by whatever debt the spell had left behind, same as it had for him.

Without wasting another second, he began pouring his mana into her, giving all that he could spare and more. He let the potion worry about everything else. Hopefully, it would last long enough. If not, then they would have to depend on the next dosage when it was available sometime tonight.

He couldn’t heal mana channels, but he could supply her with mana. Hopefully, easing the burden on her body enough that the spell backed off enough for the potion to truly take effect.

It was easy to tell when the potion stopped working a minute later, as her body locked up. He had cut things close with giving her help. Still, he continued to send her energy non-stop until the debt was filled, and the spell stopped asking for more.

Charlotte blinked and rolled over a minute later, her eyes glazed over but slowly coming into focus. “That was a very bad idea, one of your worst, in fact.” She croaked out.

He chuckled and shifted his right hand some more. It had long since cooled down, but he was enjoying the cold on his burns until he felt up to healing them away.

“Yeah, using ‘Blink’ while flying is definitely not something I’ll be trying again anytime soon. How far do you think we ended up going on that jump?”

“A few miles past way too far is my guess. We were fine on the ground for some pretty impressive distances. This blew them away without a doubt.”

He nodded and stared up and the expansive blue sky. There were only a few clouds high above them at the moment. “How are you feeling?”

“Raw, each of my mana channels is screaming at me right now. I don’t think I should try using any more magic today, at the very least. Thanks for shoving that potion down my throat. It saved me.”

“Of course, you know I would do anything for you, and yeah, I would wait until you drink the potion again later tonight before even thinking about trying anything. At least you’ll come out of this stronger for it. Your channels will be stronger now than before, just like any other muscle.”

“That’s an image, mana channel body builders,” She chuckled weakly and went quiet for a few moments before limply turning her head to look at him. “How about you? How are you doing?”

“My mana gathering rune mainly helped to keep things under control. At the same time, it heated up so much doing it that the channels in my arm are in a sorry state. I haven’t looked at how badly it’s burned either, but I can at least heal that away.”

He lifted the arm in question from the snow, showing it off. Both siblings winced as they saw the melted skin around his rune. “You know, I was wondering why it wasn’t hurting more, and no longer felt like everything was on fire. I guess that answers that. The nerves are all dead.”

He brought the ruined arm down to his chest and used his intermediate healing magic to effortlessly repair the physical damage.

“We’ll need to at least get me in touch with a healing mage at some point, preferably before I finish awakening as a High God. That just seems like something that is way too useful to pass up as part of my foundation.” Charlotte complained lightly after seeing him work his magic. Now that she knew she could collect all the different magical elements same as him, she wanted to.

“It would be simpler to see if we can just bring you in to touch my core and collect them all at once. We should try that later, in fact.” Charles offered distractedly while making sure his arm was fully healed and functioning.

“Uh, yeah. We could do that instead, I suppose. Are you alright with showing your core to me like that?”

Charles put his healed arm down and looked over at her. “Why wouldn’t I be? It’s just my core. It’s not like it’s some super-secret realm that hides my inner thoughts. I mean, yes, it is a place I wouldn’t invite most people into, but your my sister.”

“It really is that simple for you. Isn’t it?” She sighed and faced the sky. “Even now I don’t always understand you, little brother.”

“Yeah, but that’s alright. You’re still the one who gets me the most. Not even mom and dad ever understood me quite as well.” There mom had her own issues understanding people, and their dad was just too carefree most of the time. He loved them, they never doubted that, but he could be frustrating at times.

Charles grabbed Charlotte’s hand and began a guided meditation session. It was the same thing he had done with her earlier that day with the kids, only now he was bringing her into his own core.

Despite what he had said, he was a little nervous. No one outside of himself had ever seen his core. It was different from everyone else’s. Whether that was because he was different or a result of their shared race, he had no idea.

All he knew was that where everyone else only had one core, he had many. His central core had changed from its original shape and now resembled a transparent, slightly golden statue of himself. Each of the elements he had access to had formed into compressed colored orbs and were constantly revolving around the central core. Each time he learned a new element, a new orb would be added.

Charlotte took a moment to take in the strange sight before deciding to completely ignore the statue. It took her only a few moments to touch each of the orbs, and then Charles pulled them back out.

“I’d offer to let you check my core, but you already have electricity and metal. The parts that make me a ‘Techmage’ seem to be tied to me deeper than that. You still can if you want. I just don’t think you’ll get anything out of it.”

He thought the offer over for a moment before shaking his head. “Thanks, but no. You’re right. It’s one of those things that makes you special. I don’t think I’d want it even if I could.” Charles smiled at her and squeezed her hand before releasing it. “So, did it work?”

“Yeah, I now have access to all the same elements as you do along with a host of new spells. Why did you do it now though? I would have thought you would want to wait until we were back on the station.”

“It’s private here, and I don’t know… Something just told me it was the right time.”

She glanced at him from the side of her eye but accepted the explanation, regardless.

They continued to lie there for a while longer, staring up at the blue sky and slowly letting the snow soak through their clothes.

“Well, ‘Blink’ is a fun spell and would be great in a fight, but it’s just not very effective for traveling,” Charlotte said at last.

Charles let out a bark of dry laughter. “No, no, it is definitely not at that.” He cracked his neck and surreptitiously glanced at the trees around them. “You know we’re surrounded, right?”

She gave a small nod. “I can tell, they weren’t exactly subtle when they showed up a few moments ago.”

It was true. Just as she had begun speaking again, a group of people had surrounded the small clearing.

“It’s been long enough since we landed that I don’t think they saw us come down. What do you think? Did they just stumble upon us, or did it take them this long to make their way over here?”

If a group didn’t have access to an old working vehicle, that had been repaired since everything began, then travel could take a while. People had to run everywhere, which slowed them down significantly. Even upgraded stats could only do so much for most people. There were few people with high enough levels that they had access to enough stats they could use for something like that. Of course, even then they couldn’t put those points towards just one attribute.