Grey second layer

every possible second before the next aetheric blast.

The offsetting flow of aether kept me on my feet despite the pain of backlash. I sucked at the aether building within the obelisk-like a half-drowned man gasping for air. My hands were already pressed against the quickly-warming stone, but I leaned forward and rested my forehead against it as well, absorbing the swelling energy as quickly as I could.

The aether was pure. Much more so than any source I’d encountered before. It was like breathing in pure oxygen; my head swam with the power of it, burning like a bonfire in my solar plexus.

My aether core couldn’t even condense or refine it further. Instead, the purified aether was scraping the remaining impurities from my core, and my chest began to ache.

As my core filled to the brim, I continued to draw aether from the spire—I had no choice. If I stopped, it would explode and kill me—but it felt like I was trying to drink the ocean. My core was so full that it began to quake and tremble. A radiant bolt of pain shot out of it, and I tasted bile in the back of my throat.

The light from the obelisk grew brighter and brighter through my closed eyelids. I wasn’t even sure how long it had been.

I tried to expel most of the aether from my core, just like I had when I first began to trace my aether passages, but when I opened the gates around my core, the streams still running in from all over my body overwhelmed my attempt to push outward, creating a backflow that caused an uncontrolled flood of purified aether that I couldn’t stop.

‘I’m drowning in here!’ Regis shouted, his wisp form entirely inundated with aether.

Strobing flashes of light pierced my eyelids. I pushed my face away from the obelisk and opened my eyes; the spire flickered, struggling to release the intended expulsion of destructive energy but lacking the force to do so. I was acting like a release valve, giving the aether an outlet that kept the pressure from reaching the necessary level.

There was a resounding crack from my sternum.

Looking inward, I saw a dark fissure appear across the surface of my aether core.

My vision swam. Fireworks went off behind my eyes. A white hot blade of pain cut all the way through me.

No.

A second crack branched off the first, shivering like a slow-motion bolt of lightning around the circumference of my sphere, nearly breaking it in two.

No!

Taking a ragged breath, I bent every ounce of my formidable will on the task of molding the aether to my will. With somewhere else to go, it stopped overflowing into my weakening core, and I eased into a delicate balance between the obelisk’s continued efforts to explode and my inescapable absorption and reformation of the purified aether.

Despite the precarious nature of my position, a grin formed on the corners of my bloody lips.

Regis hovered within my core, watching me work. ‘No way.’

“Yeah,” I huffed, my smile stretching wider. “Definitely better than bathing in lava."

****

Turning my awareness inward, the first thing I noticed was my aether channels. The flood of pure aether from the obelisk had widened them and scoured the insides clean of imperfections.

There was a deep ache from my core as I manifested a claw and began to dig around inside the seedpod, but I focused on holding the shape. Although I didn’t have much aether to pull from, I found that the aether itself was moving along my channels more quickly, meaning I could manifest it to a specific point of my body almost instantly.

It still took time to condense the aether into a thin claw off my index finger, though, and my tired mind struggled to focus on the shape. Instead, I focused on my core.

The core itself was larger and more transparent. The reddish tint was entirely gone, and the aether within had resolved into a deep, rich violet hue. Focusing closely, I could see the clear delineation between two separate layers of my core: the original shell supporting and holding the pieces of my mana core, and a second, thicker layer.

I had first forged my aether core by pure intent and sheer will. At my weakest and most desperate point, I had turned total loss into an impossible victory, doing something perhaps no one in the history of this world had accomplished.

When my aether core began to crack, I realized that I had to move beyond my current limited perspective. I had followed the same path as a mana-wielding mage, expecting growth through use, meditation, and combat.

Mana cores lightened in color as they became purer. This was a purely biological mechanism, natural to its function. Although it required intentional meditation to make the most of it, even someone who never focused on refining their mana core would see it slowly progress through use, like the strengthening of a muscle.

But my aether core wasn’t natural.There was no set biological progression.

Through significant effort, and the knowledge born of my time both as a white core mage and a ki user, I had been able to remove many of the impurities and imperfections within it. Although this had allowed me to more easily absorb aether, and in greater quantities, it had not brought about significant stages of progression like advancing through the orange, yellow, and silver stages.

I realized that I needed to be more intentional. If my aether core wouldn’t evolve on its own, I had to find some way to force it.

Utilizing the vast reservoir of aether from the obelisk trap, I had formed a second layer around my core—very slowly, and very painfully.

Unfortunately, the process had required nearly all of the aether channeled into the obelisk, so that by the time I was done there was none left to absorb for myself, leaving my body weak and aching.

Now that I had done it, I couldn’t help but wonder: Could I do it again? With enough aether, could I continue to add layers to my core, growing exponentially more powerful with each one?

It was possible. The biggest hurdle was finding a source of aether strong enough to forge the layer in a single sitting, almost the reverse of holding enough aether in my core to imbue into Sylvie’s stone and break through a layer.

In my moment of necessity, when I had no choice but to do something drastic or risk crippling my aether core, it was exactly that thought that had given me inspiration. The way Sylvie’s stone, or egg, utilized multiple layers to capture and hold aether had served as the foundation of my own attempt.

Thanks, Sylv, I thought. Even asleep in your egg, you keep finding ways to keep me going.