Spirit's Awakening: The Path of Lightning and Water-Chapter 333: The Foundations of a Vision

Though they had accepted his bold request, Lassim stood in front of them, taking in their expectant gazes.

"After the creation of the spatial alphabet, I focused on coming up with this. The foundation of the design, which I believe is quite straightforward," Lassim began, tapping the first schematic.

"The archway. It’s modular, scalable, and as simple as I could make it while still supporting the immense strain that folding space should have on the device. It’s not much to look at in this draft form, but the elegance will come later. Right now, the essence of this whole prototype lies in its practicality first and foremost."

Rlyis leaned in, her fingers tracing the faintly glowing runes at the base of the arch. "I don’t fully understand the alphabet, but at a glance… these runes should have the meaning of [Solid] and [Lock], correct? I see the logic—you’re trying to ground the structure to prevent it from ripping itself apart when this spatial energy of yours activates. But this placement…" She tapped the page thoughtfully. "It might cause mana turbulence where the array lines intersect. You’d risk disrupting the stability of the so-called ’bridge’ or rather the connection between gates."

Lassim nodded, grateful for her sharp eye. "I honestly don’t know what would even be better than this. I’ve scratched my head a lot over this, but I haven’t found a better arrangement yet. What would you suggest?"

"Let’s come back to that," Rlyis replied, her mind clearly spinning with ideas as she pulled a blank sheet from her pouch. "I want to test a few configurations, but you can keep walking us through the rest for now."

As she retreated to a nearby workbench, already sketching alternative layouts with one ear listening in to his explanations. Her memory of all of the sheets from an Array Apprentice’s work was simple enough and she’d already memorized everything, allowing her to begin her adjustments.

Lassim turned his attention to Eno, who stood with arms crossed and eyes locked on the intricate lines of the schematics.

"And the power source?" Eno asked gruffly. "How are you planning to keep this thing running without you standing there channeling your mana into it all day? You mentioned a storage container? How are you planning to make it work? That’ll probably be the biggest headache of this whole venture for you and I to figure out. I’m not sure how volatile the energy required for teleportation will be, but I imagine it’s quite corrosive or reactive towards anything trying to contain it."

Lassim shifted to a second sheet, displaying a detailed sketch of a cylindrical container embedded with a complex rune array. "So, the storage container comes in and I’ve designed it to act as a mana battery, pulling in ambient mana from the surrounding environment and converting it into the void energy necessary for the spatial bridge."

Eno raised an eyebrow. "Converting ambient mana into void energy? What’s your method?"

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"I’ve designed a set of runes specifically for that purpose: [Filter] to draw in and refine the mana, [Convert] to transform it into void energy, and [Balance] to regulate the flow into the storage container with the rest of the device, keeping it charged at a measured pace. I also added a [Cut] rune as an emergency failsafe to the control panel—it will shut down the entire system if it detects instability. Well, as long as I can get Rlyis’ help with the programming for the array controls…"

Rlyis chimed in from her bench, "That’s simple enough. All our constructs have this feature and it’s quite standard. We just didn’t have time to teach it to you explicitly since we were too busy with the rest of the actually functional features of the constructs we were teaching you."

Eno snorted softly, "Sounds good on paper. But I’ll tell you, I’ve seen enough already to say this right now, the kinds of alloys and minerals that would make this work may not even exist on this planet.."

"That’s why I need you," Lassim said, meeting Eno’s gaze. "You’re the best I know. If anyone can help me find the right materials, it’s you."

Eno smirked faintly, shaking his head. "Flattery won’t make the work any easier. But you’re not wrong—I’ve got some alloys we can start testing with. Don’t get your hopes up though, I’d bet my two-tonne spirit hammer that none of my usual materials will hold up on the first try."

He reached into his magic pouch and pulled out a small stack of ingots, each one shimmering faintly with a unique hue. "These are some of the toughest spirit-forged alloys I’ve ever worked with or created. Let’s see how they handle your fancy new element."

Lassim took the first ingot, its surface cool and smooth under his fingers. "Do I use my fused mana, or…"

"Can you use only the… well," Eno interrupted, "Raw spatial energy? Can you still do that after what happened?"

"I should be able to. My inner heart world still has it leaking through from the connection to my constellation," Lassim closed his eyes, drawing a deep breath as he reached into his inner heart world.

The whirlpool within surged at his command, clouds thickening and swirling as mana coursed through his core. At the peak, above the storm clouds and island mass and the whirlpool, the starry rift to his constellation far, far away pulsed, spilling raw spatial energy into the roiling currents in the rest of his inner heart world, flooding it.

Channeling that energy carefully by itself, Lassim directed it through his mana pathways towards his hand which was then sent into the ingot. The air around them grew heavy, almost as if space was trying to figure out what to do with this abundance of its mana in this singular spot. The air began vibrating faintly as the spatial energy met the alloy, something that even Eno and Rlyis could feel that sent shivers through their skins.

The reaction was immediate. The ingot’s surface began to warp, stretching and compressing as if caught in a gravitational anomaly. A faint crack spiderwebbed across its edge, and with a sharp ping, the ingot fractured, all over the course of 5 seconds.

"Well," Eno said dryly, picking up the broken piece to examine it. "That’s one down."

Lassim frowned, setting the fragments aside and reaching for the next ingot. This time, he adjusted the flow of energy, reducing the intensity to see if a gentler approach would yield better results, but he tried to keep a similar level to keep testing consistent. The amount of spatial mana these would need to handle repeatedly, potentially hundreds of times on a daily basis, was going to cause a lot of stress to the materials, so he couldn’t go too easy on them.

The second ingot held steady at first, lasting a full 20 seconds, its surface shimmering with an otherworldly light. But after the 25th second, it began to hum—a low, dissonant vibration that made Lassim’s teeth ache.

Eno frowned, holding the ingot up to the light. "It’s not breaking, but that hum… That’s not a good sign. It means the alloy’s structure is under a lot of stress, even if it’s not visible yet, I can guarantee that the internal bonds and structure are a breath away from turning to dust particles if you kept at it for another few moments. We’ll need to analyze this more closely later though as it’s a potential candidate to mix with something else if its external structure is this sturdy."

Lassim nodded, carefully setting the ingot aside on the workbench and moving to the third in the series of ingots Eno had offered and placed in front of him.

The testing continued, each ingot reacting differently to the spatial energy. Some warped, others shattered, and a few absorbed the energy without any immediate effect, though their surfaces grew dull and lifeless.

By the time they reached the last ingot, nearly 20 bars later, Lassim’s optimism and hope towards finding something reasonably quickly was completely dashed..

"None of these are ideal," Eno concluded. "But we’ve learned a lot. The spatial element interacts with materials in several ways that are unique for an element and several more that I’ve never seen before, even with the hottest fire mana or most volatile charges of lightning mana. IT also seems to me, just based on what I know about compatibility for materials like this, that our biggest issue is not just a matter of durability—but that we’ll need to ideally find something that resonates with this energy; something that can harmonize with it instead of fighting against it."

Lassim felt like his words made sense as he replied, "What’s our next step?"

"We’ll expand our testing pool," Eno said. "The testing today helped give me some ideas and reminded me of a few minerals I’ve not used recently but might be helpful. I’ll prepare several more alloys with different compositions, and we’ll see if we can isolate the properties that make them compatible—or incompatible—with your spatial element. In the meantime, you can keep refining your designs. I’m sure Rlyis is almost done with her initial suggestions and adjustments. The more precise your runes and array lines, the easier it’ll be to adapt once we find the right materials."

Lassim nodded appreciatively, "Understood. My current schedule has me allocating my time working on this project but I spend my afternoons working on increasing my cultivation. I’ve made great strides, but I wish to be Spirit Transcendence before the Elder’s Summit. Let’s meet tomorrow morning to continue testing."

Eno moved to clap Lassim on the shoulder, but his hand froze mid-motion as it came in touch with his spirit pressure. The easy confidence on his face shifted to a look of bewildered scrutiny.

Rlyis, still seated at her workbench, stiffened as though struck by the same realization, her quill pausing mid-stroke. Both of their gazes locked onto Lassim with an intensity that made him blink in confusion.

"What?" Lassim asked, glancing between the two of them.

Rlyis stood slowly, her eyes narrowing and her mouth agape as she studied him from head to toe, her spiritual sense fully extended and focused on him. "You’re... Spirit Ascension stage... level EIGHT?" she said with disbelief.

Eno’s jaw tightened as he retracted his hand and took his default position of folding his arms across his chest, "Don’t you ’what’ us, kid," he growled.

"Six months. You’ve been gone for ONLY six months!! And the last time we saw you, you were barely scratching Spirit Ascension stage two. How in the Abyss have you jumped six levels in half a year?! Do you have some secret divine wellspring you’re soaking in every night, or did the gods decide to personally rewrite the rules of cultivation just for you?"

Lassim opened his mouth to respond, but Rlyis cut him off, a few sparks of her lightning element began to emerge out of her figure out of pure irritation lighting her usually calm expression.

"Do you have any idea how absurd that is?" she demanded with a sharp but incredulous tone. "It took me eight years—eight years—to progress from Spirit Ascension two to three. And that was considered fast! Eno and I practically bled our mana cores dry training every day between working on studying constructs under our masters just to scrape through those levels. The rest of them nearly doubled in length at every level too!"

Eno snorted, his arms still crossed as he leaned against the nearest workbench. "And here you are, jumping six levels like it’s a weekend chore. What’s next? Spirit Transcendence by next week? Maybe just skip straight to Spirit Mystic and then Spirit while you’re at it! What, will you be a Demi-god in two years time?"

Rlyis pinched the bridge of her nose, muttering under her breath. "This is insane. You’re insane. How are you even stable right now? Your inner heart world should be... I don’t know... imploding from the strain! No?"

Lassim raised his hands in a placating gesture, though the corner of his mouth twitched with a faint, apologetic smile. "Okay, okay, I get it. It’s... unusual."

"Unusual?" Rlyis echoed, her voice rising slightly. "Unusual doesn’t begin to cover it! This is unheard of. Ridiculous. Unfair!"

Eno jabbed a finger at Lassim, though his tone carried more grudging admiration than anger. "If I didn’t know you better, I’d swear you were cheating. But no, of course not. You’ve got two elements, a god-blessed third one, two elemental companions that are more intelligent than they should be at this stage. What’s next? Are you going to tell us the storms at the Tempest’s Cradle bow to your will too?"

Lassim winced slightly, deciding it was probably best not to mention his recent breakthroughs in storm manipulation and the ongoing issues with the grumpy/jealous Black and Red lightning elemental.