— My body…
His tongue brushed against his teeth, feeling the newly sharpened edges. Every muscle pulsed, as if it had been disassembled and reconstructed during the night. He raised his hand before his face. Blue-tinted veins throbbed beneath the skin, tracing patterns that resembled ancient runes.
He knelt by the stream, where the reflection showed white hair streaked with luminous fragments. As he blinked, his pale green eyes glowed softly in the water.
— Finally at the peak of the Internal Forge Ring — he whispered, pressing his hand against his chest.
Three ethereal rings spun beneath his shirt—two golden and stable, the third flickering like unstable amber. A dry leaf brushed the back of his neck. Before it could touch the ground, Aslam caught it between his fingers, the movement leaving trails of light in the air.
"The boy's body adapts better than expected. Kaelus's vascular system integrates mana better than any other I've seen."
The snap of branches echoed through the forest. Aslam turned by instinct, his right hand already weaving a protection glyph before his mind could even identify the threat. The air vibrated with contained energy.
— Reflexes returning… but they are not mine.
His fingers trembled as he dissipated the spell.
"Kaelus's muscle memory? Or is this body developing new instincts of its own?"
"I need to at least reach the Expansion Ring before facing the Sylvaris."
A red fox glided through the undergrowth, its snout twitching as it caught Aslam's altered scent—half human, half something it had never sensed before. The creature approached, one paw at a time, until it pressed its warm snout against his hand. He felt the fox's mana flow, a gentle stream compared to the ocean running through his own veins.
The fox retreated with fluidity, its nose pointing toward the east. Aslam raised his left hand, letting threads of mana dance between his fingers like serpents of light.
— Lead the way — he whispered.
The animal trotted through scorched ferns, each step leaving ghostly marks on the soil. The air became heavy with sulfurous vapors. Between black volcanic rocks, three flowers pulsed like living embers.
— Smoking Flowers — he murmured with a raspy voice.
His knees sank into the singed earth. The crimson petals curled at his touch, releasing luminous spores that adhered to his skin.
— Sixty seconds for the harvest before the magical cycle closes.
His fingers moved with speed, cutting each stem with precision. Heat radiated from the buds like small furnaces. When the third stem snapped, the ground shook, cracking to reveal incandescent lava below. The fox shrieked. Aslam leapt backward as the remaining plants plummeted into the magma.
— My thanks — he said, storing the flowers in the specific herb compartment within his bag.
The creature had already disappeared toward the north.
Hours later, Aslam was crossing a swamp of stagnant waters. Bioluminescent fungi clung to his boots, leaving neon-blue trails. The odor of decomposition impregnated the air. Under the twisted roots of an ancestral cypress, he found the Astragor. Its black formations resembled petrified tumors.
— Ugly even for a fungus — he commented.
He cut it and stored it in the compartment. Then he climbed a rocky outcrop above the swamp. The acidic mist receded, revealing concentric rings of blue lichen on the stone. He took out the Smoking Flowers. The petals crackled, smoking against the humid air. The Astragor rolled out, releasing vapors that distorted the space around it. The spherical relic pulsed in response. Aslam suspended it between his knees.
"Toxic synergy," his ancient consciousness warned in his memory.
With his thumbnail, he carved runes into the smoking petals. Each cut released jets of incandescent nectar that burned his forearm. When the tenth symbol glowed, the flowers disintegrated into crimson ash, swirling in the air to form patterns.
The Astragor required another approach. Aslam crushed the fungi between his teeth, the taste of rusted metal invading his mouth. Black veins spread under his eyes, channeling the poison to strategic tissues.
The relic vibrated violently, nearly escaping his control. The ashes of the flowers spun in a vortex, weaving a crimson grid around the sphere. He spat blood contaminated by the Astragor onto the relic. The metal groaned where the blood touched, exposing internal layers covered in engraved runes.
Aslam pressed his thumb against his poisoned wrist, letting the blood drip directly onto the artifact's magnetic matrix. The poison infiltrated through micro-fractures. The relic screamed, emitting an ultrasonic sound.
The Smoking Flowers acted next—Aslam blew the ashes over the metallic surface. Each incandescent particle fused to the molecular structure, forging containment runes.
Two-layer sealing: thermal contraction for physical bonding, interference patterns for magical suppression. The sphere shrank to twelve percent of its original size, revealing nine concentric rings spinning at dissonant speeds.
— A fractal seal — Aslam murmured, lifting the artifact as he recognized the patterns.
Each facet contained micro-engravings of floating cities and machines from forgotten eras. That relic was not just a source of power.
It was a map.