In the week since he discovered this ability, he’d doubled his blood’s prana capacity yet again, bringing it to forty times what it was in the Human Realm.
With Current, he could attract prana with a force so unbelievably strong that he’d nearly killed himself while testing it. Prana had coalesced around him in a black vortex, becoming visible to the naked eye. It was like a storm of deadly black magic, with him nestled within the eye.
Unfortunately, as impressive as it was, his blood had burst. Only the pranites saved him.
Vir had known that the faster the current, the stronger the attraction. He just hadn’t anticipated cycling prana across his whole body would create such a strong effect.
If there was a limit to its speed, it was mental; there was only so fast he could will the prana to go. It felt like a soft limit of his mind, rather than anything to do with the prana itself.
Unfortunately, progress on the orb hadn’t been nearly as exciting. His pace hadn’t improved one bit, though he’d learned some tricks to make the process less likely to destroy the cores. As his control over the Prana Current loops grew, so too did his ability to direct the incoming energy as he desired. Vir noticed this when the prana inscription rings filled to capacity earlier, reducing the likelihood of overloading them.
Now, he was nearly done. He’d charged the orb as much as he dared. While not completely full—the risk was too great—even a two-thirds charge would lengthen Ashani’s life by years. Possibly even decades.
While he’d debated charging them both before waking Ashani, he decided it was wiser to revive her as soon as possible. Not only because of his guilt over having lied to her—but because having Ashani around would help stave off the loneliness. He’d grown fond of her infectious energy lately. If he was honest, he missed her.
Vir walked up the stairs from Janak’s lab with heavy steps. His excitement had gotten the better of him as he’d filled the core. His breaks became shorter, and he started to break his own role, foregoing sleep. Now, he felt only anxiety.
Sweat greased his hand, and he had to keep wiping the orb on his clothing. While he was fairly confident he’d done it right, he couldn’t know. Not until he turned her back on.
Vir found Ashani sitting on the edge of her bed where he’d left her, her eyes closed as if meditating. While Janak’s lab had a station designed to support her when she was down for hibernation or maintenance, she preferred the comfort of her own room, which had once belonged to Siya.
Bracing himself, he carefully inserted the core into her back, then turned it clockwise to slot it in place.
Blue lights flickered on, and the receptacle retracted. Skin materialized over it, hiding any evidence it was there.
A moment went by. Then two. Ashani continued to sit lifelessly, her eyes closed shut.
Vir’s heart pounded.
Did I mess up? Did I break something without realizing it?
A dozen possibilities played through his head.
“Ashani? Can you hear me?”
The goddess’ eyes fluttered open. She looked around, confused.
“Vir? Did you…” Her eyes went wide. “So much time has passed! Why?”
Vir smiled. “How do you feel?”
“Ashani is—I mean, I am well.”
Ashani stood up abruptly, nearly knocking Vir back.
“Core charge Eighty-three percent! Oh, Vir…”
The goddess embraced him, lifting him off his feet and twirling him in the air as if he was a toy.
“Woah! Uh, Ashani? Maybe calm down?”
“O-Oh!” she said, setting Vir down, her cheeks red. “My apologies! I seem to have gotten carried away.”
“Don’t mention it,” Vir said. “So, you’re really alright?”
“I believe so… One moment,” she said, frowning. “Vir… This isn’t my core.”
“Is something wrong? Is it incompatible?”
Ashani rubbed her chin, her eyes flickering rapidly, as if she were reading lines of text on an invisible page.
“No. Not incompatible. ’Tis a military model core. Rated for higher capacity than my own. Its features differ somewhat from my own, however. I shall need to do more testing to know for certain.”
Ashani stared at Vir, her hands on her hips. As if expecting him to say something.
“Um, yes?”
“This is from the Yaksha Guardian, is it not?”
Vir pursed his lips. “I was really hoping you wouldn’t know.”
He’d deemed it safer to charge the Yaksha’s core first. If it wasn’t compatible, and he accidentally broke Ashani’s primary core, she’d have died.
“You risked your life? For me? Why do something so foolish?”
“You’d have died if I did nothing.”
Vir was expecting more of a reprimand, but Ashani’s expression softened, and she placed a hand on his shoulder. “Thank you. I was right to trust you.”
“I don’t know if you were. I really can’t believe you put your life in my hands so easily.”
Ashani smiled coyly. “Let’s just say I had a good reason to.”
“Well, at least you have one mostly full core now. And your old primary one. Still need to fill that. The Yaksha had two cores, but I ended up breaking one. Found another one in the Automaton vault, but I, er… I broke that one, too,” Vir said sheepishly, embarrassed at his failures.
“Now that is a story I need to hear.” Ashani’s voice lacked even a trace of ridicule. “How in the world did you defeat that guardian?”
“Well,” Vir grinned. “I had some help.”
They migrated to the living area, with the moving picture frames on the wall, where Vir spent the next hours narrating his story. Of how he’d broken her orb and his moment of panic, followed by his decision to acclimate to the region before venturing to the vault. He told her of his desperate fight with the Yaksha, ultimately concluding with the loss of her wolves.
That was the part Vir truly dreaded, and it was also what saddened Ashani the most.
“I wish I could do something for you,” the goddess said. “You have blessed me with a new lease on life. There must be something you want?”
“I didn’t do this for a reward, Ashani,” Vir said. “Knowing you’re alive is reward enough for me.”
The goddess smiled. “But?”
“Well, if you happened to have some Artifact weapons lying around… I certainly wouldn’t say no.”
“Artifacts, is it? Weapons made by my people?” Ashani said, wincing. “I’m afraid I have no way of reproducing the weapons you saw in the simulation. At best, I could give you my rod, though it would be of little use to you. It was designed for Automatons.”
“And leave you defenseless?” Vir exclaimed. “Even if I could use it, I’d never do something like that.”
A sudden thought occurred to him. With all the drama of his fight with the Yaksha, he’d almost forgotten about the spool of glowing blue ribbon he’d found in the vault.
“Can you tell me what this does?” Vir asked, retrieving it from his belt pouch.
Ashani rushed over, her eyes going wide. “May I?” she asked, taking the ribbon from Vir.
“What a surprising find,” she said, turning it over in her hand.
“You know what it is?”
“An Imperium Fabricator Ribbon. Useless on its own, but when slotted in an appropriate device and configured appropriately…” Ashani beamed at Vir. “You said you wanted a weapon? Tell me, what would you like?”
Vir stole glances at Ashani as she worked at a station inside Janak’s lab, though most of his concentration was on charging her other core. Perhaps because it wasn’t a military model like the Yaksha’s, Vir found it simpler to charge. It lacked as many inscriptions, and they were less temperamental.