Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2: Learning

The process of change was nearly instant, Arkyn no longer had any features along his face or body. He was the same proportions as before but was a lot taller with a completely different appearance. Instead of skin or a face, he was a silvery metal body with no mouth or nose; only four, grey gems centered in his head like two pairs of eyes.

His vision was different as well. He originally saw everything in colours and shapes, now he was seeing everything purely by the energy they output. The walls of stone were blank, black and white outlines while glowing crystals in the walls were releasing a white glow that seemed to swirl like little vortexes in water. The brightest thing around them was the woman and his own body, they were lit up like an explosion of multicoloured fireworks.

Inside her silhouette were dozens of little rivers of yellow and blue flowing mainly from the heart and head. If he focused hard enough, he could see dots of black emerging from within the streams of light, bubbling in and out of sight every few seconds.

Arkyn's was similar except there wasn't a heart, only a massive concentration where four large spheres sat in his chest, and the central part of his head, and the rest of the thin rivers seemed to flow evenly between sixteen smaller orbs in his body. Two going down the neck, one in each forearm, in each hand, and five going down both segments of his legs. The smaller spheres were the size of an eyeball, all producing a full hue of colours; red, blue, yellow, and green.

The last thing He noticed was that the woman didn't have the strange network of magenta lines that directly connected between all sixteen points and his head. Not even between her heart and her head.

He was about to ask about what all the colours and patterns signified when a new magenta line erupted from her brightly lit mind and connected with his.

'This is a psionic tether, it more or less creates a thin beam of mana straight from the speaking section of my brain to the auditory sections of yours. For most people, it takes years to master the art of it without damaging each other's brain function. So for now, don't try and mess with the one's holding you together.'

Arkyn tried to speak aloud to confirm, but when attempting to do so, he realised there was no way for him to vocalise his words in the metal form.

He turned to look and gesture at her, but received a hefty punch to the chest. He only saw it at the last second, but there was a wave of teal coloured rivers released from her fist.

Suddenly his body compressed back down to her height and appeared human again. Whatever the teal colour was, he lost sight of it once his regular sight returned.

"I am only warning you now because on the fifth and sixth awakening, you nearly killed us both trying to form more tethers. You kept saying my name on a loop over and over after that disaster, so avoid calling me Kresha for a while, I'd hate to mute your voice."

"Understood . . . Madam."

She did not correct his word choice and began their walk through the brightly lit hallway, leaving the sounds of the machines behind. Passing what looked more like rooms of scrap metal, spare parts, and some scattered glowing gems.

"Short version is you're made up of a lot of different things. I had to balance out a lot of your flaws with more layers of runes, which in turn made more issues. Those few that show up simply mimic the mobility and senses of a human body that your brain is accustomed to operating, minus the biological needs of food, sleep, and probably sex. All that should be swapped out to operate on magic energy alone."

It took quite a while to make it around halfway down the hallway, passing a few more machines rolling through. Some rolled underneath their feet or dodged their path by climbing the ceiling fixtures. Kresha ignored them and kept talking.

"Now that was a whole process of substituting the chemical reactions in your brain to rune programming. They don't call me the greatest Runesmith of the Afflicted for nothing.

Too bad that 'simple' process still took the better part damn near four decades to complete. So don't go wasting all my effort and start breaking the crystalline coating that encases your brain either."

The corridor opened up into a much larger space, where the stone finally started to change. The floor and walls were polished and coated in some kind of dark gloss, barely projecting their reflections as they walked. More clear-cut crystals of light were hung from the ceiling at varying heights. Being so high above the floor with different intensities made it appear like the night sky, constellations twinkling in the darkness of space.

"This is bare space right here in the exact center of the mountain, most times I use the space as a staging ground to ma. . . to-" Kresha almost seemed to slur her last few words for a second before she stopped talking and walking all together.

She went to grab something in her robe pocket, but it seemed to Arkyn that whatever it was had gone missing. On account of her expression changing, and the sudden sprint full speed down one of the dozens of other hallways connected to the central room. Leaving behind a spilled pipe and a nonreactive Arkyn.

Unsure of what else to do, He decided to follow behind her since the most recent command was to do so. He sprinted down the same hallway, still no change to his monotonous expression. After a minute of running at full speed, he realised there was no ground gained. Kresha was still far ahead somehow.

'Perhaps the actual form of my body is faster.' He thought. 'Do I need her help to operate the runes though?'

Arkyn recalled the way his body felt when she touched the runes that seemed to run underneath his artificial skin. The mana running through his body responded to how he imagined it with his brain rather easily. He stayed focused on the areas he willed the energy to concentrate on, finding the spots along his chest once again revealing the runes.

In a bright flash of light, he was back to full size and faceless. Being much taller allowed his legs to extend farther with each movement, and by testing the focus of more energy to the orbs in his legs, he was boosting power at every stride.