He did another four hundred.

  “You’re a machine.” Aiw? was speechless.

  He wheeled up to study Zane, who was busy chugging down some of the Barbarian Sage’s recovery drinks between sets. He started inspecting Zane’s heaving chest the way he’d done the Interspatial Ring, eyes glowing.

  “It’s tempered just like Primordial Steel…” he muttered. “And the shape of it…just exquisite craftsmanship.”

  “…Thanks?”

  “No, thank you,” said Aiw? with a grin. He jotted down some notes. “This is some great inspiration.”

  Zane was a bit baffled by that. But he carried on.

  ***

  At the end of another long day, the shape of Stellar Infusion was bright in Zane’s mind.

  He dropped his hammer and wiped the sweat away with a towel. He felt stiff and so pumped he could barely bend his arms.

  He took another swig of ice water. He felt a little woozy.

  That was about ten hours straight of low-burn Asura; ten hours of nonstop smashing… after yesterday, Aiw? was hoping they’d clear five hundred pieces, but they were getting well near nine hundred.

  “Alright, enough!” said Aiw?, waving his arms—“You’ll work yourself 'til you keel over!”

  Zane blinked at him.

  “Don’t give me those big doe eyes, like you don’t understand,” Aiw? seemed rather stressed for him. “You’re wobbling on your feet!”

  Zane was speechless. “…That's just how I work.”

  “Who taught you that?”

  A vague memory floated up of the Barbarian Sage watching him keel over from exhaustion, scratching his chin, dumping some ice water on him, helping him up, giving him a hearty slap on the back, and going, “Alright, lad, final lap!”

  Aiw? seemed set on it, though.

  “I'm calling it here. Go home! Rest well—or don’t you want to be in prime condition for your first Stellar Infusions tomorrow?”

  That settled it.

  To save time, he rested these days in-world. Aiw? showed him a cavern where he could stay just a few feet down the mineshaft, and there he took out a Storm Yak sleeping bag and crashed.

  ***

  He started off the next day in the deep mines.

  When he came in the next morning, Aiw? was working on some sketches. He looked up and gave Zane a thumbs up. “I’ll drop by to take a look at your progress! Why don’t you find a sturdy cave and get going?”

  He started off expecting a long day of explosions.

  …Which was pretty much exactly what he got.

  Stellar Infusion was a Concept that affected any Law to do with the stars. It did as it said on the tin—it gave that Law the very essence of the star.

  And stars, at their cores, were explosive.

  He called to mind the flow of the energies he’d seen in Aiw?’s infusion. The way they spun and spun, building, compressing—charging up, making a sphere of chaotic light—like the surface of the sun growing white, just before the Flare burst out. That was what he needed to recreate—that burst. A rocket launch that’d propel any Skill he tried.

  He swirled a strand of Solar Flare within his fists. Then another, letting them course around his fists, growing denser, brighter—

  It wasn’t yet an attack; it wasn’t yet real. He held it in that manifesting stage, like a flare gathering under the surface of the sun. The energies were building in his body, gaining a dangerous potential.

  It felt a bit like riding a bike. They coursed through his arms, building, growing unsteady as they surged—it all felt a bit wobbly at first, unsure.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  But he didn’t have time to think on it. It’d all come crashing down if he didn’t go faster—so he did, urging the current to surge—

  Then he felt a sudden lurch and thought, shit.

  BOOM!

  Stones crashed from the ceiling.

  He spat out a mouthful of soot, blinking.

  He’d pretty much expected that one.

  Only he wasn’t quite sure what had gone wrong. It’d all gone a bit fast.

  He figured he’d try again and pay closer attention near the end there.

  “You alright?” A squeaking of wheels; Aiw? was heading over.

  “Yeah,” called Zane.

  Aiw? poked his head through the cavern mouth. “That was your first try at it?”

  Zane nodded.

  “That was really good.” He took in the cavern, then Zane. “Do you know what happened?”

  “Not really.”

  “Well, let’s see.”

  He took out his hand—and a string of lights began to shimmer over his arm. Essence—flowing very much like Zane’s just now. …That wasn’t right.

  It was exactly like his own.

  Then he felt Aiw?’s soul—a massive one, quite like his own, actually—but he could tell how sensitive it was. He was controlling all those motes of essence, holding them still, making them flow back-and-forth, as he held that explosion still, rewound it, and set it rushing free.

  “Good so far,” said Aiw?, and the scene played forward; the essence flowed faster and faster—“Let’s slow it down,” said Aiw?. “Ah—here’s where things start to go wrong…”

  It was mesmerizing to see—at the time he’d been a bit too focused just on keeping things going. But now, his essence swirled like snowflakes in front of his eyes, in their hundreds of thousands—a beautiful storm of light.

  “There!” said Aiw?, pointing. “See? The flow’s starting to diverge.”

  He scrubbed it back-and-forth and showed Zane up-close. Then changed the angle. “It’s too tense. I suspect it’s because you’re trying to keep control over the flow and also increase its speed at once—but at a certain point, you’ve got to choose,” said Aiw?. “It’s very counterintuitive, but you’ve got to let go of the illusion of control. Lean into the rush! If you fully commit, it’s much easier.”

  Zane considered this.

  “Now, if I were to nitpick…” The fellow proceeded to break down the structure of Zane’s Skill across time. Then he made a different version, where the energies flowed in an ellipse rather than a tight circle, and as he played them side-by-side, he saw it really was stronger.

  Here—see? The motion’s always going forward, and in. Always moving toward the center, but it never gets closer to the center, if that makes sense. The center’s where all the power concentrates. All this charging up, it only ever comes to a stop at the very end—and that’s when your Skill explodes into being.”

  Zane nodded—he got the gist of it, he felt. “The visuals were quite helpful.”

  After that, Aiw? headed off, a bunch of blueprints under an arm, an etcher over his ear, humming. He was already somewhere else.

  ***

  Aiw? stopped by later that day for another check-up.

  “Zane?”

  Some squeaks as he wheeled in. “Zane—you’re doing it!”

  This was, of course, the point at which it all blew up in Zane’s face.

  He spat out a mouthful of soot.

  “…Sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” said Zane, wiping at his face with a towel. He was more pleased than disappointed. “I’m getting the hang of it.”

  “You've never tried this before?”

  He shook his head.

  Aiw? blinked at him. “Zane… You’re really something else.”

  ***

  Later, he talked it over with Reina, who pursed her lips at Aiw? showing an interest in his chest. She felt she’d already claimed that territory.

  Zane wasn’t quite sure what to say to this.

  Then they got to the demonstration bit.

  “Hold on,” she said, blinking. “Was that a Skill?”

  Zane shook his head. “I think it was just essence control.”

  “…That means he was just dropping by, saw it at a glance—and then tracked the trajectories of millions of essence motes, across space-time. And not only that—he could experiment on them, make new never-before-seen versions, like that.”

  She snapped her fingers.

  “No wonder he’s so sure of his vision,” she breathed. “If he can see with that kind of detail—the visions in his mind might be as real to him as anything he sees in real life. Maybe to him, they feel more real.”

  Zane took a moment to consider this.

  Reina felt Noughtfire might have the essence control to rival Aiw?. And Zane, the raw capacity. It was how it all came together that made the Creator of the System unique.

  ***

  That week, Zane was consistently rather stunned by how much energy and creativity the fellow had despite being stuck in a cave with nothing.

  Aiw?, on the other hand, was in awe at the sheer size of the Zane he had at his disposal. A week in and he was already tearing up plans and expanding what he thought he could do with the System.

  That week they got several thousand System chunks made while Zane primed a solid 1% of his essence for infusion.

  It was a good week.

  ***

  Weeks later…

  “I’m not sure…” said Aiw?. He looked to Zane. “This was never meant to be tried.”

  “We’ll make it work,” said Zane, who was pretty pumped about this. It looked to be as intense a physical challenge as he’d gotten in years.

  Aiw? hesitated. “There’s just too big a chance I’ll faint before it’s through.”

  Zane wasn’t having it. “You think too much,” he informed Aiw?. “Just give it everything.”

  “…You’re right.” Aiwe took a deep breath, and grinned. “Ready, partner?”

  They bumped glove to fist and got to work.

  It was a large-scale energy tank—if they could make this for the System, it could unlock a whole new category of System powers—the higher-powered ones, including a System store. They’d carve it out of a giant dreamsteel block.

  Only Aiw? had to Infuse it at least once every ten minutes to keep it from solidifying.

  In that time, Zane would have to hammer it into shape—holding a high raw-power output the whole time.

  It was an hour of CLANGs and BANGs and BOOMs!

  By the end of it, Zane was lying flat, drenched in sweat—in Aiw?’s original vision, this was meant to be accomplished by a small army of peak Minor Gods working in tandem—and even then it’d be a stretch.

  Apparently that, or one Zane, did the trick.

  Aiw? was so pale he was almost translucent.

  But it was done.

  “Good heavens,” gasped Aiw?. “We’ve really done it.”

  He bumped fists with Zane.

  “…Aiw??”

  Aiw? had fainted.