Bryce

It had taken nearly twenty-eight hours of non-stop work to rebuild Thea’s meridians. I was nearing the end of it, and the complicated process had become almost automatic. Which left my mind to explore options for repairing her core while my finger traced new passageways underneath her skin.

It quickly became apparent that repair wasn’t an option. There was just too much damage, and all that was left was a partial shell of the original. Just like with her meridians, I was going to have to recreate her core from the ground up. Which was daunting, to say the least.

The mana-core is intrinsically linked to the soul. It gathers mana, which is then stored in the soul to be later circulated throughout the rest of the body. In order to recreate Thea’s mana core, I would need to re-establish that connection, in addition to ensuring that the new core was able to do its job.

The whole thing felt like I was a surgeon trying to build her patient a new heart using spare parts that I found lying around an office space. It wasn’t very promising, but I wasn’t about to let Thea die, so I had to make it work.

I finished with her meridians, then spent some time studying the existing core shards before causing them to dissolve into Thea’s body. The outside shell was essentially just a hollow sphere of solidified mana, not entirely dissimilar from the internal walls of the meridian, just much more densely packed. That part was going to be relatively simple to recreate.

The circulation throughout the body could be solved by manipulating internal passageways and having dedicated inputs and outputs from the core. There would still need to be some sort of flow generation, but that was solved by the much larger problem of restoring lost mana. Which was where the trouble actually began.

I knew of a spell that could be used to pull mana from the environment, which could work. In fact, I had used that same spell to destroy my research station in orbit around New Eden by using it to fill a gem until it overloaded. But that was the problem. I didn’t want that to happen to Thea’s core. In theory, if she always spent a constant amount of mana and never allowed it to build up, then she’d be fine. But that wasn’t a risk I was willing to take. Especially not when a miscalculation could mean Thea slowly dying from mana decay or violently exploding.

Then there was the problem of the spell not being permanent. It would only last for a few days at most until the formation wore itself out, and I’d have to recast it. Which wasn’t exactly sustainable.

The permanence issue could be solved by feeding a portion of the absorbed mana back into the spell formation to recreate degraded sections, but that was dangerous in its own right. Even a slight miscalculation in the amount of mana being absorbed could cause the spell to recreate non-degraded sections, thereby creating an entirely new copy of the spell. Which was what happened on Vista Prime, and how I accidentally killed nearly fifty-thousand innocent people.

A spell wasn’t going to work, which meant I needed to approach this differently. What I really needed was to see how it was done in a living person, ideally in a devil, but a celestial might be good enough.

I left to go find one, but didn’t have to go far, because Esme was resting in a chair right outside the door.

“How’s Thea?” The tired-looking succubus asked.

“I’ve managed to repair her Meridians, but I’m having a difficult time with part of her core. Would you be able to find me a devil or celestial that would let me take a look at theirs?”

Esme frowned before answering. “A willing devil would be difficult to find, but Nes and Taz are still around. I’m sure either of them would be happy to help if it was to save Thea.”

I wasn’t exactly sure of what sort of changes a devil underwent when they fell, but I doubted it had anything to do with their core. Actually, that wasn’t a given… Whenever a devil fell, they were cut off from the mana provided by their creator’s afterlife. The other changes Thea had told me about seemed to relate more to the soul, but it was possible that they extended to the core.

Unless they didn’t, and the soul was the one accumulating mana, not the core. On the surface that felt a bit ridiculous to say, like claiming the brain created blood for the heart to pump… okay, that wasn’t exactly the best analogy, but I wasn’t a doctor. Well, I was a doctor, but only because I had a doctorate, not because I had a medical degree. Which meant my anatomy metaphors weren’t great.

Either way, the study of how the soul interacts with a mana-core was something like legacy knowledge, passed down over the years and studied in textbooks. None of my classes included any practical research of the soul, because that sort of thing was incredibly taboo. Of course, I had never really let that stop me in the past, and I certainly wasn't going to let it stop me with Thea's life on the line.

“Bryce, which do you want me to go get, Taz or Nes?” Esme had stood up from her chair and was waving a hand in front of my face to get my attention.

I blinked a few times, trying to remember why she was asking me that. Thankfully, it didn’t take long to figure it out. “Actually, can you grab Chorus? I may as well get the information directly from the source. Oh! And some food, if you don’t mind. I’m starving.” Esme sounded like she was going to say something, but I was already back in the room with the door closed.

~~~~~

“You have to know something about it. You’ve created at least three celestials.” I protested through a mouth full of food. It had only taken Chorus about five minutes to show up, and he brought a chicken salad wrap with him. Which was either the best made wrap I had ever had in my life, or maybe I was just starving. Possibly both.

The god shrugged from where he was sitting across from me. “I’ve made six, but that doesn’t mean I know anything about how the mana-core and soul interact with each other.”

“Then how did you make them?” I took another bite of my wrap while I waited for his response. It really was delicious.

“That’s a bit of a complicated topic, and not one I could discuss without a lot of context that you’re likely missing.” Chorus frowned in thought, but eventually continued. “Essentially, while a mortal’s soul exists in Elysia, it puts off a small amount of residual power in addition to what it provides the god whose afterlife it resides in. If enough of this residual power builds up, then it’ll sometimes coalesce into an entirely new soul. After that, it’s just a matter of creating a physical form suitable for it.”

“How does this new soul compare to a mortal’s?”

“It has an inherent connection to the realm in which it formed, other than that, I’m not sure. I’ve never taken the time to examine the two in detail, and messing with a mortal’s soul too much is an excellent way to get your mantle stripped from you.”

I frowned at the non-explanation. Chorus didn’t know. Which was unfortunate, but understandable. The question had been pretty far from his field of expertise. But something else had been bugging me. “Lilith mentioned that a god specializing in souls would have their mantle removed, and you essentially just said the same thing. Who would be capable of removing a god’s mantle, and why do they care so much about this?”

“How about we leave at least a few mysteries of the divine to the divine?” The god cocked an eyebrow at me. “Besides, if you continue down your current path, and don’t get yourself killed, then I have a feeling you’ll figure it out on your own soon enough. Along with a few other mysteries that you haven’t even thought to ask about.”

I just shrugged as I sat my plate on the small table between us. There hadn’t been enough room to use it while eating, but it could at least hold an empty plate. “Well, in that case, would you mind me looking at the souls of one of your celestials? I can swear an oath to not harm them or if there’s something else you’d like me to do as a precaution, then I’d be happy to do it.”

“How about a devil?” Chorus stood up from his seat with a smile. “I can't make her do anything, but I suspect she’d be willing to help if I explained the situation.”

“Uh, yeah, that’d actually be perfect if you could arrange it.”

~~~~~

“I’m Trinnia. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Bryce,” Trinnia smiled shyly as she introduced herself, but the raven-haired woman didn’t make any move to approach. Normally, I would try to shake her hand or something, but Nes and an unknown man covered head-to-toe in full body armor were glaring daggers at me. I just didn’t feel entirely safe trying to touch her.

“Bryce, Trin is my baby sister. If you hurt her in any way, then I don’t care what Thea thinks, I will kill you.” The celestial succubus warned, which caused Trinnia’s eyes to go wide.

“Nes! There’s no need for that! I’m here to help, and if a little discomfort is the cost to save a life, then I’m happy to do it.”

“There shouldn’t be any discomfort.” I held up my hands to placate the two guards. “I just want to take a look, nothing else.”

“Ignore them.” The shy devil took a confident half-step forward before going back to looking unsure of herself. “What do you want me to do?”

“Just stand there for now while I cast a few spells.” I waited for Trinnia to nod, then started casting the same mana detection spell that I had used on Thea earlier. The first thing I noticed was how incredibly bright her soul was, and her core wasn’t much dimmer. She had a lot of mana available to her, even more than Nes, and much more than the man beside her who barely even registered on my radar.

“Trinnia, would it be possible for you to drain your mana reserve?” I asked, and she tilted her head in confusion, so I explained. “I’d be happy to reimburse any lost mana, but as it is the amount you have surrounding your soul is making it difficult to see any details. Ideally, if you could drain yourself nearly dry, then it’d be much easier for me to examine.”

“Um, yeah. I can do that, and there’s no need to reimburse me. I was already planning on spending most of what I have later this evening.” She turned to the armored man with a kind smile. “Dras, do you mind if we do your treatment early? I understand it’s not the most private setting, but if I’m going to have to use my mana, then I’d prefer to do some good with it.”

Dras didn’t hesitate before stepping forward and wordlessly kneeling in front of Trinnia, where she delicately removed his helmet to reveal a human face covered in terrible burn scars. She handed the helmet to Nes, who didn’t seem entirely sure of what to do with it, before placing a hand on Dras’s forehead. I took a step forward to get a closer look as she started casting.

Trinnia had a talent with healing magic, which was rare in general, and somewhat surprising for a woman born as a celestial of Chorus. She was also incredibly skilled with it and only took a few minutes to drain her entire mana pool. At the end of it, Dras stood without a single scar on him and Nes awkwardly handed him back his helmet, which he re-equipped wordlessly. “Was that what you wanted?”

I nodded without responding. Watching Trinnia pull mana from her core was… interesting. Despite the devil’s obvious skill, the process was strangely inefficient. Specifically, in the transference of mana from her soul to her core. There was an obvious bottleneck that was causing a slight delay between when Trinnia started casting and when the spell started to take effect.

“Dras, do you happen to know any magic, or have any magic items on you that require channeling?” I hadn’t asked for the human to be here, but it might be the best opportunity I was ever going to get to see how mortal and non-mortal souls differed.

Dras looked towards Trinnia, who smiled back at him. “Please Dras, you don’t have to, but it’s to save her girlfriend.”

The human nodded before pulling a gun out of a hidden pocket in his armor. Mana instantly started to move directly from his core towards the weapon. There wasn’t a delay, and mana flowed smoothly from his soul to replace what was used by his core. More importantly, I watched as he finished and mana began to accumulate slowly in his core before flowing back into his soul. It was exactly as I had been taught, and exactly as I had originally expected. It was also not at all how Trinnia’s core worked.

“Nes, would you mind emptying your mana pool as well?” The succubus shrugged as she began to morph. A ripple of feathers raced across her body that was immediately followed by a line of scales before her skin returned to its normal texture. She continued the cycle for a few minutes nonstop before finally running out of mana. As far as I could tell, her soul and core were identical to Trinnia’s. Ideally, I would have liked to see a few more examples, as well as a demon's core and possibly a god's, but I figured that could wait and I thought I had enough to draw a conclusion. “Thank you all for coming, as well as lending me your mana. I think I have enough information for now.”

Nes gave me an amused smile. “Always happy to help. What’d you learn, anyway?”

“Devils don’t need mana-cores.” I shrugged and ignored the blank stares as I moved back to the bed where Thea was still sleeping. I didn’t think it’d take me more than a few hours to rewire all of her meridians to connect directly to her soul.

~~~~~

Eleven hours later and all I had left to do was set the last connection. My original assessment of devils not needing mana-cores had been slightly overstated, although not by much. The core had been acting as something of a buffer and signal converter, which meant that it actually was necessary. Just not as critical as it was in mortals. It felt like it was added as an afterthought to make non-mortal souls compatible with a physical form.

The end result was that I had to create the connections between each individual meridian and the soul in a way that replicated what the core was doing. By my estimate, it was going to be far more efficient.

I held my breath as I made the final connection, but let it out as Thea immediately started to stir. “Hey princess, you look radiant.”

I didn’t even try to hold back my tears. Instead, I leaned over the bed and kissed her as deeply as the awkward angle allowed.