Chapter 480 – Axiom

Sophia felt magic bleed out of her from some well of power she’d never really felt before. It sounded a lot like how her father described his connection to both dungeons and demons, but that was all she could say about it.

A moment later, it was gone, but she still knew where Dav was. She also felt a resonance that pointed directly towards the central pillar of the World Tree and a series of smaller pings that led off in directions she couldn’t easily identify; those had to be the other Towers, and the link had to be her Scion of the Towers Ability. It was good to know that the Ability still worked, though she worried for a moment about what it meant for an interaction between the Blessing and the Sphere.

The extra awareness started to fade almost immediately. Within moments, she couldn’t feel any connection other than Dav, and even that quickly faded to a simple background awareness. She was usually aware of where he was anyway; he was usually inside her aura’s range. Sophia was certain she wouldn’t even notice the difference unless she looked for it soon.

“You should go and rest,” Prelate Varthas told them. “You will be more tired than you think. If you want to talk to me about this late, you can, but right now you should head to your inn.”

Sophia didn’t feel tired, but she didn’t argue; whether he was telling the truth or just wanted them gone, he’d said they could come back.

Less than half an hour later, Sophia would have known the Prelate’s advice was good if she weren’t already asleep on her bed. Both she and Dav lay on top of the covers, without even taking their boots off. 

Sophia woke up a little over four hours later, still a little tired but also ravenously hungry. She tried to get to the door quietly, but Dav woke up as soon as she shifted away from him. “Should we get food downstairs or visit one of the restaurants?”

“I think the barbeque place a couple buildings over,” Dav answered. “They always have something cooking, and I’m in the mood for their spicy seared kebabs.”

Meat on a stick did sound good, now that Dav mentioned it. She usually preferred the grilled sausages, but this might be a day for an exception. “Not the honey-drizzled kebabs?”

“Eh,” Dav answered with a grin. “Maybe a few of each.”

The meal was fast, large, and mostly protein, just what they both wanted after the day they’d had. They limited their conversation to the food until they were back in their inn room, where they both checked what happened to their Spheres with the Blessing.

Sophia’s was easier; hers was nearly unchanged. Her Status panel didn’t show anything at all and when she checked her Sphere space, the only difference she could see was that the threads that belonged to her Species Abilities seemed to be a little thicker than they were before. She tugged on one of the threads and found that it was reluctant to shift. She’d probably made her repair task a little harder, but she’d also made the Sphere sturdier and that wasn’t a bad trade.

Dav’s situation was different. First, as Ekkiba predicted, he could hear the Lifeweb and even had a Lifeweb Link Ability like Sophia’s in his Species section. It was similar, but definitely not the same. The biggest functional difference was that Dav had to actively listen to hear anything through his Lifeweb Link; it simply wasn’t as strong as Sophia’s … with anyone except her.

Lifeweb Link

To be Suras is to be linked to the life around you, especially to those with similar Blessings. You are distantly connected to both Suras and Archons through the Lifeweb.

There were a number of other changes to his Status. His Species was listed as Blessed-Suras Axiomatic Hybrid, which was clearly a reference to Sophia’s Species. As far as Dav was concerned, it was far better than Chaos-Warped, especially since there were no obvious changes other than the description. There was no Ability that talked about the ability to safely travel the Origin that Sophia wanted to grant, so all they could guess was that it was implied by the new Species.

If it worked at all. They wouldn’t be able to tell until they tested it.

The Species showed the other change that filled his entire Status: everywhere that once called out Chaos or Eldritch was now labeled Axiom or Axiomatic. It took them a while to figure out what that meant, partly because it was subtle and partly because none of them worked at all the first time Dav tried to use them the next day.

The first Ability he tried was, naturally, his healing Embodiment. The first time he tried it, nothing happened. He knew it didn’t work, but that was all he knew. It took nearly an hour of trying different things before Dav stumbled across the trick: he had to specify what he meant to heal when he used the Embodiment. 

It seemed like Eldritch had its own ideas about what things meant, or at least was willing to pull from Dav’s subconscious. Axion required him to manage that. It allowed him to be a lot more specific and directed about what he was doing but also required additional thought when he activated an Ability. There were situations where that was not great, because using his Abilities took quite a bit more effort and he was going to have to practice a lot to get them back to where they had been.

More practice for more control was a trade Dav was willing to make, especially when the new Abilities didn’t change who he was even when they changed his body. 

Sophia was fairly certain it was exactly what Dav wanted when she Blessed him. If that was right, then he chose well; it meshed with his controlled fighting style and made him more comfortable with his own Abilities without destroying his skill set.

Over the next few weeks, Dav found out that even “more practice for more control” was incomplete. 

His healing Embodiment was an excellent example of the change. He could direct his healing in ways he hadn’t been able to do before; if he concentrated on healing specific things, he could heal only those things. It cost more mana and far more concentration, but it was far faster as long as Dav knew enough. If he didn’t, nothing at all would happen, even if the Ability activated. 

It was far closer to a proper healing Ability if he used it that way, though healing injuries in minutes rather than hours still meant it was of limited use in a fight and the fact that he had to concentrate to do it made it even less useful. At the same time, there were cases where it was far more useful; faster recovery was worth a lot. He could still manage a generalized healing aura, though it tended more towards “faster natural healing” than the Eldritch version had. Getting rid of scars or setting bones now required deliberate concentration.

Dav knew quite a bit about the human body, but his knowledge of Archon species was limited. It turned out that he could cheat his way around that with the help of his Lifeweb Link and Sophia’s Plumed Knowledge, which was a use for the Ability Sophia never expected.

Dav’s Reflect Ally Ability was another oddball. He could now duplicate anyone he was linked to, whether directly through his psychic mesh or indirectly through the Lifeweb Link, as long as they approved; they didn’t need to be physically present. It was a full duplication, as far as anyone could tell, including their minds - though the only one who got the full feedback was still Dav himself and he only got it when he duplicated himself. Even better, they were full reflections, with the mana seeming to come with the reflection rather than from Dav. 

Unlike before, the difficulty in reflecting people seemed to be based on how different they were from Dav. Reflecting himself or Sophia was easy, and Leo wasn’t too bad either. Xin’ri and Ci’an were a bit more difficult and it got worse from there; if he reflected anyone through the Lifeweb instead of his own psychic mesh, he had to concentrate on the Ability rather than fighting himself. It would allow some different choices when circumstances called for it, but his most effective choice was probably always going to be reflecting himself, just as he had before.

Purifying Phoenix no longer turned Dav into a phoenix; instead, he released a bundle of energy in the shape of a phoenix that dove through the person he was trying to heal and “ate” the “bad stuff” … as long as Dav could identify what it was. If he couldn’t, it was far weaker than before. In return, if he knew exactly what the problem was, it was fast, easy, and cheap compared to the earlier version.

Every single Ability had small changes like that as Dav went through them. Instead of calling on something external that changed reality around him, Dav could call into existence an axiom of reality drawn from the Origin. It sounded the same, but it felt completely different. Instead of warping reality, it changed the meaning of reality - but it was still reality. 

At least, that was what Dav said. Sophia didn’t entirely understand what he meant, but it seemed like he did.

Over the next few months, Sophia restored her Sphere and Dav practiced his altered Abilities. 

Leo spent a lot of that time in the roots of the World Tree with Arvinn and Reko; they weren’t ready for their first upgrade. They were gathering wisps for the Abilities they wanted, aurichalc to try to buy slots in several different Challenges once they reached the first upgrade, and ideas for the direction they wanted to take their Spheres. Arcatiz had a lot more known Sphere options than Casterville had. They also knew a lot more about how to guide your progress to get what you wanted and whether or not your choices were reasonable for your end goal. Both of the youngsters wanted to reach the fourth upgrade before they took their Professions and moved on to what they considered their “real” adult lives, which meant that a lot of the cheaper choices weren’t good ones for them.

Sophia was pretty sure that Leo kept helping them out because he was interested in Arvinn, while Arvinn was clueless about how both Leo and Reko felt about her. Sophia wasn’t about to interfere; there was no way in which having your older sister interfere in your relationships was a good thing. She knew that from experience and didn’t see any reason to share that experience with Leo. It only led to bad feelings. He would learn more if she left him alone; as far as she could tell, Arvinn wasn’t going to lead Leo into anything he couldn’t deal with without Sophia’s help, which made it a perfect first relationship. 

Ci’an and Xin’ri returned to Mazehold for a long visit. They originally planned to join one of the periodic trading caravans, but Sophia told them that was silly; she could ask Cliff to temporarily rearrange one of the link-gates in the Maze to let them leave directly from the node that held the partially repaired Tower. They’d need to get help to return, but that ought to be easy enough; according to Xin’ri, there had already been two trading expeditions since Arryn left.

Sophia hoped they’d be back by the time they went to take on the Event on the fourth branch. She knew she wouldn’t need their help; Notii would be happy to take Sophia and Dav whether or not Xin’ri and Ci’an were there. It would still be nice to have her friends there for one last whirl.

Revanos visited a week after Xin’ri and Ci’an left. He had good timing; he arrived while Sophia was dealing with a particularly nasty tangle of Thread that seemed to have looped around her Hoard and was making the Ability hard to use; she had to spend a minute on each feather she added. Removing them was a little faster but she was still only managing three or four feathers per minute instead of dozens within seconds, which was the speed she needed for an actual fight. 

Sophia doubted it was a coincidence; as their Patron, the Wanderer could see their Spheres. He’d know something happened to her if he looked, though he might not know exactly what. It might be simply luck that he appeared now, when she was actually having real trouble; earlier would have been better.