Zane blinked.

  He felt the heat passing by his face—an incredible outpouring of energy packed into a pure, clean-cut pillar.

  Then it struck flush and vanished.

  The steel shone like a rising sun.

  Aiw? took a deep breath and grinned.

  Zane gave him another look.

  He felt the fellow’s aura in that moment—his soul.

  He got an impression of a night sky, stretching horizon to horizon, endlessly deep…

  It might’ve been as big as his own, to his surprise. Though maybe it wasn’t so surprising, with what Aiw? was up to down here.

  “Well, there it is,” said Aiw?. “What do you think?”

  Zane inspected the steel. It’d been a pretty simple, focused blast—like a thick laser of moonlight. But the raw energy in the blast was well north of True God.

  He nodded appreciatively. “It’s good stuff.”

  “It’s one of my favorites,” said Aiw?. “The mechanism’s really quite neat. It can plug into all kinds of skills…”

  He trailed off. “Ah. That’s… not great.”

  There, near the edge of the anvil, it looked like the pillar had shaded off the edge of the anvil—and driven into the ground.

  A tiny fissure ran down near the foot of the anvil. Thin—but so deep you could drop a penny down it and not hear it strike the floor.

  “I’ll fill it later,” said Aiw?, waving absently. “Look, here’s what makes Stellar Infusion special. This is the base skill, Holy Ray…”

  He held up a finger. A shaft of light fell from the heavens, but much weaker—nothing like what’d lashed by just now. Still dangerous, but it couldn’t even mark the face of that steel.

  “See the difference? Stellar Infusion brings your soul and essence to bear and gives any sun-based Law that extra burst,” said Aiw?. “I chose Holy Ray for precision. But it could be any Law. That was a slow Infusion, so you could see how it works—but once mastered, it can be fired off in a split second.”

  He waved an arm, and another unholy ray came crashing out of nowhere, slamming the anvil, showering the cavern in sparks.

  Zane nodded thoughtfully.

  He was already thinking about the explosive burst that could give his axes or his hammers. It always felt like it took a little while to get into the swing of things.

  He usually didn't mind tanking a few hits to get going.

  But if he could come out swinging… He was into it. He could see the vision.

  There—sitting in the light of his own flames, frazzled hair slightly singed, grinning with that slightly wild look in his eyes, Aiw? cut a bit of a picture.

  Then he doubled over coughing. His life-force shuddered.

  “Feh,” he said. “Should’ve known better,” he rasped. “It’s usually a bad idea for me to throw two Skills in a row—body’s not having it. Just… wanted to show it off, I s’pose—”

  He gave that little rueful smile. “Neat, though, isn’t it?”

  “It is.”

  Although this fellow did somewhat astound Zane. …He couldn’t even use his essence half the time?

  For a man who was stuck in a cave with almost nothing, had to make nearly everything from scratch, and whose whole body seemed determined not to let him do anything, he really got a lot done.

  Aiw? wheeled by, bumping shoulders with Zane, and went for his gloves.

  “Right! The steel won't stay hot long,” Aiw? said brightly. “What do you say we get hammering?”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

  Zane set the mold against the anvil and dug into it with a meaty THWACK.

  The hammer had a stone half welded to a thick chunk of blue-block Dreamsteel.

  He took a deep breath, lifted it—and crushed.

  It bore down on the mold—and drove it clean through the block of steel with a satisfying SCHLUNK.

  When he lifted his hammer and the mold too, a perfectly shaped tube-part lay on the anvil, smoking slightly.

  Aiw? took the mold and held it up to the light.

  “That’s some fine work, friend.”

  “Thanks.”

  Then it was onto the next chunk.

  Dreamsteel, even softened up, was a tough customer. He supposed it had to be; they were making the backbone of the System now, which was meant to last millennia and hold worlds in its grasp. Still—he felt he’d broken harder steels before. With each blow, he only put in enough force to explode an F-ranked planet. But it was the consistency that made it tough.

  Chunk by chunk, he delivered.

  To Aiw?’s surprise, Zane quite enjoyed the work. Zane wasn’t surprised.

  It was strenuous, but not in a way he was used to, and that made for a novel challenge. He kept his Asura State at low burn, never going much over 20 or 30%. But he held it there for hours at a time, taking breaks only to wipe the sweat off his brow and drink some essence elixir before getting back into it.

  It was a test of strength-endurance. And by the end of it, he was surprised to feel rather sore; there was a light burn wracking nearly his whole upper body. His lower back and thighs were strangely tight.

  Aiw? infused four chunks that day, good for a day’s work.

  Each time, Zane made sure to fix that swirl in his mind—the maelstrom of energy that made the Stellar Infusion—the chaos where true power showed its face. That moment of blastoff.

  He felt he got a pretty good sense of it by the time they were through.

  By then, 462 pieces of shaped steel lay at his feet.

  Aiw? went through his new parts one by one, shaking his head at some and holding others up to the light. He seemed in faint disbelief.

  “462…” he said at last. “On a good day, I’d get nine.”

  He started to laugh.

  “What’s up?”

  “It’s nothing, just… this is the start of something great.” He came over and patted him on the shoulder. “I can just feel it.”

  Zane wasn’t sure what he was expecting from the Creator of the System. Maybe some old, curmudgeonly wizard with a very long beard.

  But Aiw? was a pretty chill fellow.

  The next day, Aiw? started off by going over some theory. He brought out a little model with some props—he’d rustled it up the night before. It seemed important to him that Zane get the mechanics of how Stellar Infusion worked.

  “If you think of your flare as the cannonball, Stellar Infusion puts it in the cannon,” he said. “You’re not shot-putting it anymore. You’re lighting it—and while you’re doing it, why not stuff in some gunpowder? That’s stacking whatever other concepts you’ve got. Now you’ve got something dangerous, something explosive. Just light the Infusion—boom!”

  A tongue of fake Solar Flare burst out of the cannon and scorched a black line in reality.

  Aiw? definitely had a little mad scientist in him; Zane could see it in his grin.

  He gave the fellow some claps. “Nice.”

  “Thank you,” said Aiw?.

  It was sort of like with Reina, actually—he was so into the thing he was talking about, he just lit up. It made for easy listening.

  The gist of it seemed to be they were putting the Flare in Solar Flare.

  ***

  Munch, munch, munch.

  By now, Zane was down to half his buns, so he was rationing. They had just one bun each for lunch, as well as some of Evan’s cookies. Zane had a yak sandwich too.

  “It’s been years since I had solid food,” said Aiw?; he wiped off some crumbs, eyes widening. “This stuff’s really good.”

  Zane took another bite. “How’d you even end up here?”

  “The thing about trying to change the world,” said Aiw?, gesturing with half a cookie, “is quite often, you run into the thorny problem that the folks at the top like it exactly how it is. And they have all the power.”

  Aiw? took another bite of cookie. “In my City, it was the Council of Archmages. I really thought I could convince them. I couldn’t. They tried me for treason, and before I knew it, I was exiled with just my clothes and my chair. So that was my workshop gone, and my funding, and my license… you could say I was in some trouble.”

  He chuckled. “On the other hand—nothing to lose, or so that was my thinking. I went searching for the mythical dreamsteel, took a fall, and ended up here. I guess Fate’s funny that way.”

  They both chewed for a while.

  “I didn’t feel it was funny at the time, granted,” said Aiw? slowly. “I remember feeling… frustrated. Mostly frustrated. I think the issue is, folks thought I was a dreamer. I’m not a dreamer. I’m an architect, and a good one. There’s no chance in this. If you give me the tools, and give me the resources, and let me work—I will change the world. It’s not a question. I’ve got it drawn up, precise to a grain of sand, I’ve seen it, Zane. It could all be so much better… It’s just some folk seem deeply uninterested in imagining a better future. I can’t stand that quality in a man. If you can’t imagine tomorrow better than today—what’s the point of it all? Don’t you owe it to yourself to at least try? Look at me, ranting away.”

  He grinned. “You can see why they kicked me out.”

  For the first time, Zane felt a certain pride from the young man. A certain anger.

  It passed; Aiw? settled down.

  “You were right,” said Zane through a mouthful of bun. “You shouldn’t apologize for it. Sometimes it’s good to be angry. ’S pretty useful, actually.”

  He could see why Aiw? was frustrated. It was something he’d long figured out about politics—you had to not only be good at being right; you had to be good at convincing folks you were right. Those were two separate skills, and they didn’t have a great deal to do with each other, as far as he could tell. Unless you had a Reina, it was over before it began.

  Not his thing.

  “You don’t hold to the monks, then,” said Aiwe, wiping away some sesame seeds. “‘Calm thy mind, hold thy tongue?’ Inner peace, and all that?”

  Zane shrugged. “I like feeling things. It lets me know I’m alive.”

  Aiw? considered this.

  More munching.

  These were some deep questions they were pondering.

  Then it was back to work.