It’s not gonna hold.

That guilty, accusing thought had wormed its way through my conscience, drawing the full weight of my attention a few minutes ago. When I’d knelt down and spoken with Melina, I’d barely paid any mind to my words. My inward conversation had dominated my consciousness. And my private conversation sounded very, very different from the words I spoke aloud.

I’d tried to give off the impression of competence. Control. I’d said, “Mel, will you let me take over?”

My own words haunt me as I think back over them. The hubris! I don’t actually know how to share mana like this. I’ve rebuilt my own Skills from the shattered remains of my runes, but I don’t know if I can do the same thing for Melina. If I had gone with my first instinct and simply flooded extra mana into my friend, her rare time-dilation Skill would have warped under the strain. Just like mine in the Lesser Rift. I shudder at that thought.

While I’d offered Melina outward assurances, I was frantically running through scenarios to actually accomplish my boast of welcoming mana into her depleted pool. I knew I couldn’t share as much mana as I drained from that Rift core, even with the depths of my new reserves, but it was still too risky to try sharing. Given the raw, ragged state of her core from her harsh, prolonged overstrain, and the spider web of miniscule cracks forming on her Skill itself, it would only take a single slip to cause her serious damage.

Nervous energy had turned my stomach sour. I’d tried over and over again to shove the fear and discomfort away and focus on what needed to be done.

What’s the path forward, Nuri? I’d demanded of myself. C’mon! Think like Azariah. Find a way. One step at a time.

“Do you trust me?” I’d whispered aloud. She’d squeezed my hand and said yes, which rocked me to the core. She was putting her life in my hands. Like a fool, I’d marched onward as soon as she’d given her permission. Inside my own head, I was screaming in incoherent fear. I was grasping at every possible answer I could think up, no matter how absurd, running through frantic calculations while trying to maintain a calm and confident demeanor for her sake. But I couldn’t shake my dread. What if I messed up?

Then, in a moment of brilliance inspired by the tea of innovation I’d been drinking, I’d tried cutting straight through the distractions with an imagined blade of mental sharpness.

What if I’m wrong?

What if Lionel still dies?

What if I ruin Melina’s future, too?

Doubts died. I’d pushed forward immediately, seeking a solution with unparalleled clarity. I never knew that I could cut thoughts into pieces, but I shelved the idea. First things first. I’d have time to explore higher-order concepts later, but only if we all survived this. In a flash, my thoughts had organized themselves like never before:

Goal: save Lionel

Problem: healing accelerates decay.

Solution: stasis while Menders research.

Problem: Melina is out of mana

Solution: share mana with Melina.

Problem: Skill will break from overload.

Solution: buttress the Skill.

Goal: strengthen Melina’s Skill.

Problem: Can’t do that directly.

Solution: Use [Legacy of the Scalpel] to add reinforcing runes.

Problem: Not all the runes are in the dictionary Rakesh and Melina are helping out together.

Solution: Borrow key runic arrays from [Greater Endurance] and [Sanctuary of Glass]

Problem: braces may lack structural integrity

Solution: try to imbue with Unbreakable.

I’d nodded as a path opened up to me. The gesture was for me as much as it was to reassure her. I’d muttered some vague, inspirational line about sharing my strength. A way forward finally crystalized in front of me as I worked through the scary implications. The only safe way for me to share power—if I could even do it at all—was to fix the precarious state of her Skill structure, and that meant relying on the [Legacy of the Scalpel].

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

I’d swallowed hard, trying unsuccessfully to dislodge the lump in my throat. I’ve been on the wrong side of channeling too much power before, and it wasn’t pretty. But a quick glance at Lionel’s pained expression and twisted muscles overcame my reservations about the plan.

Modifying Skills is your forte, Nuri, I’d reminded myself. I’m not a [Metaphysical Mender] like Shiphrah, but I’m good with glass. And runes and magic aren’t that different, apparently. They can be melted down and reforged. My greatest fear was that I didn’t have enough time to experiment and figure out the best method. The only option that made sense to me was to add runic arrays alongside her Skill to reinforce it, not to add new functionality or to try to rebuild it from the ground up.

My thoughts and emotions quiet. Past and present converge as I activate my newest and most unnerving Skill: the [Legacy of the Scalpel].

=+=

I delve into Melina’s core, surging past her lowered barriers. She trusts me, and that’s an honor that I mean to repay a hundredfold. I dart forward with a pulse of willpower, flying alongside the incredible fractals of her Skill structure. Catching sight of it with a Viewing technique, even one as advanced as what I wield with the power of my [Arcane Domain: My Eyes Shall Pierce the Veil], doesn’t compare to direct access. The structure is absolutely stunning in person.

Cutting a few specialized runes from my own Skills, I gather up the raw material I’ll need to strengthen [In the Blink of an Eye] and transfer them into her core space. I’ll have to patch up my own Skills later to restore full functionality to my Skills.

Good thing I’ve got plenty of practice with metaphysical damage, I tell myself, chuckling darkly at my strange sense of humor.

Drawing on years of practice preparing a batch of glass, I copy the techniques of my art. Instead of free-forming a molten gather into a new glass creation, I hastily arrange the runes I selected into an array. Resilience, enhanced potency, reduced strain—the pieces come together as I sequence out the runes and slot them into place. Once I’m done aligning the runes by their meaning, I infuse mana into the entire section to ensure it’s sturdy enough for the task.

It doesn’t have to be pretty, I remind myself. Still, a part of me mourns to see the stark contrast between the swooping artistry of her Skill and the geometric, brutal lines of my brace. It just has to handle the throughput so that the mana doesn’t destroy her. I’m certain it will do the trick. I just wish it weren’t so ugly.

I surface back in the real world, gasping momentarily like a fish outside of water. When my vision stops spinning, I squeeze Melina’s hand again. “Ready?”

“And waiting!” she replies through clenched teeth.

Without further delay, I unleash a torrent of my mana into the world around me and paint an alluring picture of home, of deep belonging. I welcome the mana of the world to move into a new residence. Initializing the mysterious invitation of imbuing, I aim for Melina’s core instead of a glass work in progress.

For a moment that seems to stretch into eternity, my pulse pounding in my temples, the mana doesn’t respond. It’s sluggish. Resistant.

Then I sense a new invitation, this time from Melina. It’s soft and weak, wavering on the brink of collapse, but heartfelt and honest. There’s a warmth and sincerity that’s enough to bring a hint of tears to my eyes—not from grief or panic or anger this time, but because I feel at peace all of a sudden.

With our combined invitation, the mana of the world heeds our call. No, Melina’s call.

“You just imbued!” I shout. Much needed laughter bubbles up within me, breaking the tension, as I smile proudly at my friend. “You’re a Master now, Mel.”

With steady guidance, Melina completes the imbuing process. My congratulatory shout doesn’t break her concentration. She draws on the ambient mana to power the working, which settles into place with a click. Abruptly, she tugs on the abundant reserves in my own core. I’m still connected to her, my own natural mana-barrier lowered for the delve, and the energy rushes into Melina’s core and fills her pool.

She reactivates [In the Blink of an Eye], and to my intense satisfaction, it holds. Nothing cracks, nothing falls apart. I cackle in exhausted triumph.

Excitement building, Melina pours more mana into the Skill, trying to keep pace with the ocean of power surging into her like an incoming tide crashing against the shore. I know that her Capacity can’t keep up with the donation of power, but she surprises me with deft twists of mana as she modifies the Skill’s abilities.

In awe, I watch her work. Manipulating magic beyond the scope of the base Skill is difficult. Rakesh once likened it to trying to wave your hands in the air to create wind that moves soap bubbles in a pattern without popping them. I shouldn’t be surprised. Melina’s mana control has always been monstrous.

Twisting the strands of mana and activating runes in a new order, she doubles the rate of time dilation—and then doubles it again. Twice more she increases the difficulty before she starts shaking from the strain, and I’m relieved to see that the mana costs scale exponentially.

Before long, she’s almost running on empty, outpacing the rate of mana that I can loan her. I have more to give, but I can’t transfer it to her any faster. I need more throughput.

I push my mana sight to work harder, looking closer with the mapping and vision functions of my [Arcane Domain] to see if I can spot inefficiencies or opportunities for improvement. Zooming down toward the flow of mana, I observe more than just the transfer process. Maybe studying the way it moves will give me insight into how to improve the speed and capacity.

There’s something sinuous about the energy. Wave-like, hypnotic, it crests and crashes as it flows. There’s a cyclical nature to its movement that I can’t quite parse. Something about it feels important. I’ll have to ask Rakesh later.

For now, Melina seems to arrive at the same conclusion that I just did. She eases back on the time dilation ratio of her Skill until the input and output of the mana flow achieve a rough equilibrium. The rate of Lionel’s deterioration is no longer visible, buying us much-needed time to investigate a cure.

I heave a sigh of relief and sink back against the wall, slumping in exhaustion as the last half a dozen hours catch up with me all at once. Between restoring my core, gaining all the new Skills, fighting off [Lady] Saphora, sprinting to the Menders campus, and architecting a new way to artificially rank up Skills and share mana, I’m utterly spent.

Lionel is safe for a little while longer. My friends will figure out how to save him. I can rest now; my work is done. I close my eyes, letting my bone-deep weariness take over. I’ve done as much as I can. The team will take over from here. I trust them, no matter what. If there’s a way to help Lionel, they’ll find it. I know they will.