190: Pranite Power (Patreon)

Two years?

Vir despaired. Even with the time effects of the Mahādi Realm, it was too long to linger; Cirayus would be worried sick. Worse, he might wander away looking for Vir if he took too much time. If that happened, Vir would have no chance of finding the giant. As he'd learned, Ashani's gates could only reliably open at locations she'd created gates before. The placement was otherwise random.

Besides, it's two years only if I charge it every day without sleep. 

An impossible task.

But one look at Ashani’s face wiped all dark thoughts from his mind. This was a goddess he was talking about. A living, breathing goddess. Actually, Vir wasn’t certain if she did breathe, but what were a few years if it meant saving her life?

“Please stop,” Ashani said. “I thank you for trying, but the task is impossible.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. I have a few tricks up my sleeve.”

“Your… sleeve?” Ashani asked, looking at his arms.

“It’s a saying,” Vir chuckled. “Let’s try this.”

Vir evacuated the prana from his body, boosting the density difference between the ambient prana and his body. As expected, the prana suction force multiplied.

Ashani stared intently at the orb. “Impressive.”

“Well? How much time did we gain?”

“It appears to be charging four times as quickly as before. Around six months.”

Six months! That’s… still not practical. But it’s a lot better.

“Smart,” Ashani said, shifting her gaze to Vir’s body. “You maximized the potential difference between the atmosphere and your own body. Your layer of saturated blood prevents external prana from building up within you, maintaining a localized prana vacuum.”

“Er, yes?” Vir replied. Some of the terms she used felt familiar, thanks to the bits of knowledge she’d transferred, but it was like he recalled them through the veil of a dream—like he’d heard them before, but didn’t really know what they meant.

“Do you have any more of these tricks?” Ashani asked.

“Maybe a couple,” Vir replied snarkily, activating Prana Channeling in his palm.

Channeling sucked in prana to boost his body’s vitality, and, like all his abilities, it wasn’t choosy about where it got its fuel from. Finding none in Vir’s body, it sucked from the air instead.

Prana Dam stopped it from entering, except for the area on Vir’s palm where he’d let it lapse.

Through that small opening, energy sucked in with even more force, into the orb.

“Three months. That doubled it again!” Ashani said, bringing her face to within inches of the orb.

“That’s a lot better,” Vir said. “Figure maybe four months accounting for eating and sleeping? I can do that.”

“That is simply unreasonable,” Ashani said. “You would have to concentrate every moment you’re awake. But how did you…!?”

The goddess shifted her gaze to Vir’s body, and panicked. “You are altering the flow of blood within your body, to alter the flow of prana. In doing so, you’ve created an attractive current.”

“Sounds about right,” Vir replied. “What’s wrong?”

“Vir, this feels very dangerous to me. Altering your blood flow in the wrong way can easily lead to injury, or even death. Do you understand the risk you’re taking?”

“I do,” Vir replied grimly.

“How would you even learn such a thing without killing yourself?”

Vir winced. “Painfully. For this particular technique, you could say I had a little help. I got to watch someone who’d mastered it. I just copied them in a safe environment,” he said, thinking of Parai’s memory vision where he’d learned it. “Still hurt though. A lot.”

“But why take such a risk? Why not simply decouple prana flow from your blood flow?”

“You’re saying that’s possible?” Vir asked in surprise. He’d always theorized it, but had never had any proof it could be done.

“Why yes, of course!” Ashani said. “Quite possible.”

“Er, can you guide me? Can you tell me how?”

Ashani frowned. “I’m afraid I cannot. Only flesh and blood cycle prana, and I do not possess such information. The Vidya network was destroyed along with everyone else, millennia ago.”

“I see…” Vir said. While the setback was unfortunate, it was nothing next to discovering that prana could be decoupled. “Guess I’ll have to rely on my tricks, then.”

Staring at the orb, Vir could hardly believe its capacity. It was no larger than a C Grade, and while he’d never laid eyes on an S, Vir was sure Ashani’s prana core consumed many times the prana of even those vaunted orbs. He needed more prana. Lots more.

“Then how about this?” Vir asked, resting his other palm on top of the orb. If one arm’s suction bought him this much…

The prana rushing in doubled, growing so thick Vir began to see it with his naked eye.

“Two months!” Ashani cried.

“I can do even more!” Vir said, heart pumping with excitement.

Excitement that ended abruptly, only seconds later.

The charging halted abruptly, and the prana that had grown visible disappeared.

Vir looked inside himself, and to his horror, found no pranites circulating within his body.

“What happened to them?” Vir asked.

“Consumed. Moving them around that quickly takes a fair bit of energy,” Ashani said, producing a shining steel box with metal clasps.

“Consumed?” Vir panicked. The pranites had been instrumental for him. He was hoping to rely on them going forward. And now they were gone?

Ashani lifted the lid of the metal case, revealing three full syringes.

“How many more do you have?” Vir breathed in relief, preparing his arm for the injection.

“This is all, I’m afraid,” Ashani said. “Janak maintained quite a stock, but I’ve administered them to my lupine friends over the years.”

“Well, I suppose I’d better make them count, then,” Vir said as Ashani injected him.

Vir immediately felt the new pranites within his body, topped up with prana.

Ashani shut the lid of her metal case.

Vir still hadn’t gotten over how much metal the Imperium seemed to use. They treated metal the same as how modern day people treated wood. In fact, he hoped to come across small objects he could pocket. Quite literally. Each one would be an Artifact, even if their uses were unknowable.

Still, Vir wasn’t about to steal from Ashani’s home. There was an entire city to loot—there would be time for such things later. Or so he hoped.

“This is going to be an issue, though,” he said. “Is there any way I can control which wounds the pranites heal?”

Ashani shook her head. “None. They behave according to their programming, which cannot be altered.”

Vir frowned. “What about refilling their prana? Is that possible?”

Again, Ashani shook her head. “Prana is prana. If I enabled them to restore themselves, they would rob your body’s own energy. That would be quite disastrous in your current state.”

“Because my blood’s prana capacity is still so low,” Vir said, nodding in understanding. “But that means you do have a way to restore their prana?”

“Well, yes.”

“How?”

“Simply will them to,” Ashani replied reluctantly. “You’re going to turn them on, aren’t you?”

“The pranites are full right now,” Vir said. “Shouldn’t be an issue.”

It wasn’t. A simple application of will, similar to his Talents, allowed the pranites to consume prana.

Though they were nearly full, Vir still felt them draining his nearby blood cells.

Definitely need to expand my blood’s capacity, he thought. It would be a crime not to—the highest prana density in all the realms was right here, at Māhadi. It had to have been many, many times greater than what the Domain lords’ lairs had been.

If he got his blood to acclimatize, he could very well store up enough prana for multiple activations of most of his Talents.

That was an advantage nobody in all the realms could boast. The mere thought made him giddy.

“Vir? Are you well?” Ashani asked with concern.

“Sorry,” he replied. “I sometimes get lost in my own mind. I want to try charging your prana core again.”

“Though, I must wonder how much more you could channel if you simply disabled that current running through your body.”

“Sorry? Current?” Vir asked.

“Yes, the beautiful pattern coursing through all your limbs,” Ashani said, pointing to his body.

With a frown, Vir turned Prana Vision inward, but saw nothing. “I don’t see it,” he said.

“Look closely. ‘Tis a subtle thing. You must be quite the master to work prana so delicately. Especially tied to your blood as it is.”

“What are you—” then Vir saw it. She was right. The pattern was barely a trickle, only a few blood cells thick.

Vir traced the pattern through his body, and traced, and traced. It was the most staggeringly complex working he’d ever seen.

“This… isn’t mine,” Vir whispered, attempting to take control of it.

That was a terrible mistake.

Vir screamed in pain as blood ruptured throughout his body.

— —

When Vir came to, it was to a world that hurt more than it had any right to. His whole body just… throbbed with pain.

Vir clutched his head, finding himself on a bed in the same white room he’d been in before. Janak’s laboratory.

“What happened?” he asked groggily.

“You broke the circulation pattern,” Ashani said from beside him. “Why did you do such a thing?”

“Didn’t mean to,” Vir said. “I think I just figured out what my ancestors did for me when I first arrived here.”

So this is what I gained from Parai’s sacrifice, Vir thought.

Shardul had said Vir shouldn’t ever expect any more memories from him again. Those words hadn’t been easy for Vir to stomach. The one memory fragment he’d had with Parai had revealed dozens upon dozens of cycling patterns he hadn’t had time to memorize. If he could only revisit that memory, he’d learn so much more.

Alas, it was not to be. Parai had sacrificed what little of himself remained within Vir to bestow upon him this one power.

A power so subtle, Vir had never even noticed it. That impressed him as much as its intricacy. Delicate, yet powerful. Complex, yet elegant. This was a masterwork of prana, and Vir had sacrificed something extremely precious to obtain it.

Looking at it coursing through his body was a strange sensation. Vir recognized the pattern as his own making, yet it wasn’t his conscious doing. It felt a little like what happened when he mastered a skill. Like Leap—Vir didn’t think of sucking prana from the ground to power it. He’d practiced it so many thousands of times that it now happened automatically. Subconsciously.

As outlandish as it sounded, Vir sometimes found himself wondering if he’d forgotten how to consciously invoke the ability. It’d become so baked into his muscle memory that his knowledge of it started to gather dust in his mind.

Parai’s full body technique felt similar, except Vir had never mastered it. He’d inherited it from a prior life.

But what does it do? he wondered. Lacking the skill to control it, he’d messed up the cycling pattern when he’d taken control. That had caused it to stop functioning, and…

Well, that explains it, Vir thought, glad that his ancestors had the sense to allow it to operate without his guidance. If not, he’d have died the moment he lost consciousness.

“Ashani? What name would you give to that pattern? The one that I messed around with earlier?”

“It appeared to be a prana repulsion field, to me,” Ashani said. “My people once had implements that achieved largely the same effect.”

That’s a hard name. How about… Prana Barrier?

“What did they use them for?” Vir asked.

“Mainly academically, for researching prana.”

“Hmm. Well, I don’t plan on researching prana, but I do believe it’s what’s keeping me alive.”

“Yes, though it is also preventing your blood cells from adapting to the ambient prana levels,” Ashani commented accurately. “You should consider weaning yourself off of it. Your pranites will aid you.”

“I’d love to,” Vir replied. Oh grak. “The pranites!” Vir said, finding them mostly gone again.

“Consumed in healing your injury,” Ashani said grimly.

“Challing Ash!” Vir groaned. Ashani chuckled.

“What’s funny?” he asked. “I just wasted one of your precious pranite vials. There’s only two left!”

“Yes, the situation is far from ideal,” Ashani admitted. “I was merely responding to your curse. Chala was quite the notorious trickster, you know? And a good friend of Janak’s.”

“Wait, Chala was real?” Vir asked incredulously. “You knew him?”

“Quite real,” Ashani said nostalgically. “He’d have doubled over in laughter if he ever heard he came to be worshiped as a god.”

“You miss him,” Vir said softly.

Ashani gave him a sad smile. “I miss everyone, Vir.”

“W-well, I uh, I probably shouldn’t experiment with that inscription pattern until I have a better understanding of it. I’m good to charge your core, though.”

“You should rest,” Ashani replied. “Your body is still not fully healed.”

“I’m fine,” Vir insisted. “I feel much better already. Those pranites really work fast. Do you mind injecting me again?”

Ashani obliged, dosing him with another vial of the blue liquid.

Vir sat cross-legged on the floor and got to work, charging the core as quickly as he dared. The pranites moved so quickly, he could feel the miniature machines moving within his palm.

This time, he kept a close watch on their charge. When they’d depleted halfway, Vir moved them next to the surface of his skin and turned on the prana collection function for half of them, allowing them to consume prana from the saturated layer he maintained.

The process went smoothly initially. But after an hour, Vir began to sense something was wrong. Not all the prana was captured by the black orb. The excess that leaked into his body from the air was minimal, but it built up over time. Instead of ejecting it, he fed the prana to the pranites when they ran low.

He thought he could keep this up indefinitely, but it was not to be. His body began to resist this transfer of prana, and purging his body became harder and harder.

Eventually, his blood saturated, and any more would have burst his cells.

Vir halted the process, setting the orb down.

Prana Saturation. This is what happens when mejai can no longer use magic. In their case, they lost the ability to evacuate prana from their palms, thus losing the vacuum effect.

For Vir, the pranites could cycle forever as long as they had energy, but it was the rest of his body that was the weak link.

There was nothing to be done other than to let the prana bleed off.

“This could be a problem,” Vir said in frustration. “Might be some time before I can channel prana again.”

Barely an hour of charge, for two days of rest. The pace wasn’t sustainable. Vir felt he could bring the charging time down to a month by accelerating the flow of pranites even more, but only if he was able to charge it every waking hour of every day.

Still, it was hard to feel too down over it. He had pranites in his body now! If he managed them carefully, they could fill a gaping hole in Vir’s combat arsenal—namely, his ability to heal. They would also boost his offensive potential.

Moreover, they proved a theory Vir had entertained ever since seeing the Pagan Order’s electricity.

Decoupled prana is superior. Incomparably superior.

Pranites weren’t pure prana—they had a physical component—but they were smaller than his blood, and held far more prana. Not only was he able to move them around his body far quicker, they produced a much greater effect.

Which made Vir wonder just how powerful he would grow if he managed to decouple prana from his blood entirely. Would there even be an upper limit to how fast he could cycle the current?

What great powers would he obtain if he did?

Not if. When. Vir now felt confident it was possible. He needed only to unlock the secret.

Satisfied, Vir stood up.

And then the orb he’d been filling shattered.