High Artificer, Ch 15: Reforging

Sam studied Asperio as Lightning raged through the Void around them. 

He was thrashing around in a silver pool of elemental Lightning between the stars. His skin was cracked from the force of the element and his body was breaking down. 

It had only been a few minutes, but he was already unconscious. 

Threads of the element were infusing his bones and muscles, each of them like a living thing as they slowly tore him apart.

Sam shook his head as half of Asperio’s body turned to a charred black expanse, one that sizzled with silver and violet bolts of lightning. There was no blood since it had instantly evaporated under the heat.

He held out a hand and a silver goblet of distilled lightning elixir appeared in it. He raised it above Asperio and poured it over him in an endless sparkling stream.

As the elixir struck the headmaster, it sank into his skin and vitality flowed through him. The threads of lightning merged with it, becoming stronger and brighter as they continued to tear Asperio apart, but despite their force, the elixir was faster as it healed him.

It was a storm of healing and destruction, to replace what was with something new, and as it continued, Asperio’s body was changing. The threads of elemental lightning were shaping the new bones and muscles left behind, flowing through them calmly.

Sam lifted up the goblet of lightning elixir and held it ready, waiting for the next time it was needed. It wouldn’t be long. His expression was calm as the lightning continued to change the man.

Asperio was both lucky and unlucky. 

He was unlucky that he was weak and the lightning of the Void was tearing him apart in a painful manner, but lucky that Sam was here to oversee it. 

He would make sure that Asperio didn’t die.

It didn’t take long for the lightning to destroy half of Asperio’s body again, so Sam poured another stream of lightning elixir on him, which healed him and accelerated the process. 

This was far more destructive than the method he had chosen to help Rolen, but with Asperio’s level and how far he’d walked down his current path, it was necessary.

Change was sometimes brutal. 

The headmaster’s domain was weak for the Sixth Evolution, its concept confined to the planets he was familiar with. That was where Asperio had grown up and where his imagination kept him.

Even though he had found some law of violet-colored lightning, it wasn’t as powerful as the lightning of the Void. He only knew one part of the element, so his law couldn’t shield him from the others. 

That was why the lightning here was destroying him. 

Weak domains were one of the flaws humans had when reaching this level unless they had enough support from the World Core or something similar. The High Nine races had innate bloodlines and affinities to guide them, but humans had to fumble their way to power.

If Asperio had been at the Fifth Evolution, Sam could have connected him to the World Core and rebuilt his Path, which would have solved some of the issues the next time he Evolved, but he was already at the Sixth Evolution, so they had to do it the hard way.

By reforging his affinity.

This was the most effective way Sam knew and also one of the quickest. 

It would rebuild Asperio from the ground up and attune him to the lightning of the Void in all of its raw fury and destruction. His body would be rebuilt and his affinity strengthened. Lesser things like his meridians and constitution would change too. 

It would reset his foundation and from there he could find his own path.

He would need some time to comprehend the difference, but his ability with Lightning would leap forward. 

Eventually, he would be able to access the primal depths of Lightning’s power more consciously and tap into its greater heritage, the power that stretched between stars with enough force to shatter planets.

Then his domain could evolve. 

It should also improve his spells and other abilities, since they all came from the same source, but that was up to how well he integrated the new affinity. If he was quick, it would happen soon, and if he wasn’t, then it would happen later.

Perhaps there were other routes to power, but this was the one that Sam knew. He’d done something similar himself a long time ago when he reforged his body to attune it to astral energy rather than crystal flame.

It had reset a lot of his abilities, but it had also made him stronger and one with the Void.

Just like he had told the students, all things descended from Chaos. 

So to Chaos, Asperio would return.

It was fortunate for him that Lightning was a natural element of change, one that frequently gave rise to new life. It was a part of the element’s nature.

Otherwise, this would kill him. 

Since he already had a fragment of Lightning’s law woven through him, he had that same potential for new life. It would keep him alive and allow him to change.

At least with enough support.

It helped that Sam had an ability to cultivate potential in those around him, which was infusing Asperio with the energy of the early Void. 

It was an echo of chaos when things could change more easily, part of the Titan racial traits called the Flame of the First Age and the Aura of Stellar Beginnings, which he’d gained at 100,000 Constitution and 100,000 Aura.

It was probably those traits that had originally helped the High Nine when the Titans began to teach them.

Lightning continued to tear through Asperio, but slowly the threads of silver and violet lightning were mingling, like they were testing one another. 

It was the promise of change.

Through one cycle of healing and destruction after another, Asperio’s body became closer to the law of elemental Lightning. Its strength infused his bones, organs, muscles, and meridians until it was as present as his own blood.

As his affinity improved, the damage from each cycle became less and Sam poured the elixir over him less frequently.

Eventually, Asperio floated in the pool of lightning, his body crackling with energy. Arcs of lightning flowed around him, leaping from his limbs and hair. Wisps of it wrapped around his elbows and knees, and flowed out of his nostrils with every breath. 

His lightning had been pure violet before, but it had changed. Now it was almost entirely silver with just a bit of violet at the side, like a silver blade with violet edges.

Sam poured the elixir over him one last time and let him float in the healing energy. This time, there was no trace of rejection as the elixir merged easily with the headmaster and the lightning around him.

As he waited for Asperio to wake up, he turned his attention to his plans for humanity and sent some avatars out to search the Chaos Wild for uninhabited planets. 

It would be easiest to move planets with his true body, but a couple of avatars should also work. It wasn’t an ability he’d tried before, so he would have to test it.

Then he set another couple of avatars and his researcher on Celeste to scan the settled galaxy for a suitable region to put the planets once he found them. 

There were a lot of empty spaces among the stars, so the most important part was finding a good region with enough natural resources, one that wasn’t too far from key regions but not so close that they would fight with their neighbors.

As for how to get people to move to the planets and setting up a teleportation network to get there, he would deal with that after they were in place.

Or rather, he’d tell Asperio to do it.

By the time he was finished, the headmaster was beginning to stir. 

He could have teleported them back to his hall, but he preferred the stars, so he crafted some furniture out of elemental lightning and pushed a chair over to Asperio.

Before, this material would have charred Asperio as soon as he touched it, but now when the man’s hand brushed up against it, it was completely calm. It only released a few wisps of lightning as it brushed over his skin.

Asperio was still floating in the pool of lightning, which hid most of his body from view, so Sam wove him a robe out of the element and lifted him out of it on a wave of air. Then he dropped him into the chair.

“Ugh...” the headmaster flopped back with a groan as he grabbed at the arm of the chair. 

His eyes were hazy, but they blazed with force as he cracked them open. 

“Is it...done?” he asked slowly. Then his eyes turned distant as wisps of lightning poured out, and his voice faded into a whisper.

“I dreamed of lightning covering everything, tearing apart the Void. It sprang up from nothing, or maybe all things...crackling between stars as they touched one another, destroying worlds and mountains, fire and ice. It split through them all. Great leaping arcs that broke through everything and left it changed.”

His voice was reverent. As he spoke, lightning gathered around him, crackling with greater force. 

“You’ve seen the Law of Lightning,” Sam explained. “Or at least one of its manifestations in the Void. It is its own law, but it also springs up from other elements, blending fire and stone, wind and water. When the elements move, lightning forms. It is its nature. It rises from conflict and creates it.”

He summoned a new goblet of lightning elixir and held it out to Asperio. 

“Before this, your class was a limited form of Lightning, but now you’ve touched on the true thing. Drink this and study the changes. You should be able to tell.”

Sam created a similar goblet for himself and sipped on it as he waited. It crackled like frozen champagne, sizzling against his senses as tiny arcs of lightning surged across his throat. 

Asperio took the goblet absentmindedly, holding it in one hand as he turned still. Then his eyes widened.

“My class has changed!” he said in shock. “And some abilities....”

He was silent for a moment and then he began to explain.

“My primary class was The Violet Storm, but now it’s called The Eternal Storm. I had the core abilities of Violet Strike, Violet Storm, and Lightning Flash,  which were a lightning attack, an area effect to gather and manipulate a storm, and a teleport, but now they are called Horizon Strike, Heart of the Storm, and Storm Flash.”

Sam nodded as he heard the description and analyzed Asperio to confirm that the change showed up.

Asperio Prosseto. The Eternal Storm-Archmage of Shattered Chains. Level 610. 

“You’ve moved closer to the true Law of Lightning,” Sam explained as he pointed at the chair Asperio was sitting on and then the pool of lightning essence behind him. 

“Now that lightning is part of you. It has helped to correct your foundation. Look deeper and you should see that your affinities and some traits have changed as well.”

He could see the difference and even read the man’s status sheet, but he let Asperio look at it for himself. 

“I’ve gained a perfect affinity for Lightning,” Asperio muttered as he looked. “How is that possible? It was only about 40% before. I’ve also gained a Trait called Forged By Lightning, which boosts my healing and mana regeneration when in the presence of powerful lightning.”

Then he looked deeper, seeing what else had changed.

“And then there’s a change to my domain. It says that it has partially merged with the Heart of Lightning and the origin of the Void....” Asperio’s forehead wrinkled in confusion as he looked up at Sam. 

“What does that mean?”

“You’ve begun to understand what lightning is,” Sam said calmly. “The rest is up to you. Study the changes, return to the Void and meditate on lightning, look at how it works in every aspect. Train your abilities. All of that will strengthen you and your domain.”

He stood up then, smiling slightly as he looked down at his hall in the distance and then to the world far beyond it. A silver rune for Lightning flared to life in his hand and he tossed it toward Asperio, where it fused into the man’s aura.

“Now, I’m sure you have a lot to think about. If you want to hide your new Class and use the old name instead, that rune will help you. It’s probably for the best if you do that until you’re more familiar with it.”

Asperio immediately rose to his feet to match Sam and then he bowed, bending nearly in half.

“I do not know how to thank you for this,” he said as he looked down. “I barely understand what just happened.”

“There is a long future ahead of you, Asperio Prosseto,” Sam said kindly. “Soon, we’ll talk about the rest of it. And then you will understand why this door opened for you today, as well as perhaps for many others. But for now, study your new abilities.”

With that, he teleported Asperio back to the mountain peak where they had first met. Then he walked back through the Void to his hall. 

Behind him, the lightning pool and the chairs dissolved into the chaos winds, leaving behind no sign of what he had just set into motion.

When he returned to his hall, he settled down into his chair and looked up at the stars.

He had a feeling that the Winged Furies would not leave things alone, so he spent a little while checking on his family and all of the human students at the academy, making sure that nothing had come up. 

Then he turned his attention to his avatar in the Deep Void, the one hunting on the edge of the galaxy where it met the Great Dark, the border where the stars ended and there was only a vast expanse of nothing between the edge and the light of more distant realms.

Now that he was in the settled galaxy, the time difference between that avatar and his main body was only about one and a half times, so it wasn’t moving much faster than him, but it had still managed to find a few Void beasts while he was here.

The strongest ones out in that region were called Void Horrors and they were all well into the Fifth Evolution, with some that were close to the Sixth.

The notifications from the hunt rang in his mind, followed by some more from crafting experience on Aster Fall. He let the Titan Star deal with it and then summarized it all.

Congratulations, Lord of Silver Realms. 

You have gained six Levels. 

You are now Level 583.

A chuckle escaped from him.

It wasn’t a lot, but six levels at his Evolution wasn’t nothing either. Opponents that could give him decent experience took a long time to find. To anyone else, it would seem like he was progressing at a blazing speed. 

Then the notification of the essence he’d gained from the Void Horrors came in. With their ages marked in the thousands and tens of thousands of years, they were a good source of it.

You have gained 5,221,000 essence.

Essence Constellation (Fifth Star): 70,701,721 / 100,000,000.

A wave of power crackled through his body as he adjusted to the new essence level. Stars flared in his constellation, igniting the dark reaches of his spirit. 

He looked out at the stars as he sorted out the changes, but he didn’t pay much attention to the attribute gains. They were significant from that much essence, with a bit over 13,000 added to his Intelligence and Aura and somewhat less to his other attributes, but it wasn’t worth dwelling on for long.

Instead, he considered the matter with the Winged Furies and the High Nine. Then he opened a gate between Aster Fall and his avatar in the Deep Void. 

A dozen avatars leapt through, instantly spreading out in streaks of silver light as they headed for their own hunting areas.

His avatars were working to rebuild some sections of Aster Fall and to enhance the defenses there, especially in the more complex regions of the Fallen Abyss, but it was better to focus on the Sixth Evolution himself.

A dozen should be enough.

There were only 17 levels left to the Sixth Evolution. With their help, he would be there before long.

The Sixth Evolution required a high level of insight to upgrade a Law into a Truth that could bend reality, but he had accomplished that a while ago. It was one reason his domain was so powerful.

Getting enough essence to reach the Sixth Star would take a little longer, but his avatars would work on that too.

He just needed to find enough Void beasts.

After that, he turned his attention to a different region of the Void, looking past the swirling barrier of the Great Divide toward Alora’s world.

The last time he left, he’d promised her that he would return. Now that he had settled in here, he felt like inviting her over and showing her around. 

The cities of this world had a lot of amazing things, from rare food to interesting drinks to delight the senses. She might like it.

It would also be good to check on her world and make sure none of her neighbors were trying to invade it again, although that was unlikely to be a problem. 

The last time he was there, he’d enhanced the Wild Tree to give it active defenses and then he’d given the keys to Alora. The tree had nearly unlimited energy from the Void, so it should be more than capable of dealing with them.

More importantly, bringing her here would give her a chance to meet his parents and sister for the first time. A wave of starlight flared around him as he grinned.

He would take care of that as soon as he settled the first few classes. Then he could leave one of his avatars here to teach things while he went to get her. 

It should only take a day or so, and less if they came back quickly.

He was smiling as he stood up and headed for the doors.