When I stirred, I found both Bevel and Xelinda over me.

“Papa?” Bevel asked, kneeling at my side, my hand held in hers. Apparently I’d been out for a bit. “Are you okay?”

“I’m… well, I’ve got a bit of a headache, but otherwise, I’m fine,” I said, even as I spoke, I noticed the words felt a little slow. Like I was listening to myself speak at half speed. As though I was inside stretched time.

It wasn’t just the words.

When Xelinda’s eyes narrowed, looking between me and the door I was lying beneath, it felt like she was doing it at a fraction of the speed she should. “That is a very different scene.”

It was surprisingly easy to understand, despite how disorienting it felt. Following her gaze I noted that Keeper’s face now hung above the Dauntless. The image made it look like Keeper was as large as the Terra Vistan dreadnought. “Not creepy at all.”

“A very different opponent than I face,” Xelinda said, hand resting on her hilt.

Bevel offered me a hand, and I accepted it as I unsteadily made my way to my feet. Thankfully, she lifted with more than just her hand, supporting me with a swirl of light wind.

We made our way up the metal stairs, each step echoing in the surprising quiet. I’d been so distracted by the strange dilation I was feeling I hadn’t noticed the lack of machinery moving.

When we reached the top of the stairs, Conflict was waiting. It turned, chains rattling as its gaze locked on mine. “A new alloy, forged of the ancient and the new. Strong enough to survive.” The words rolled over us, nearly pushing me back a step with the sheer force of them.

“Right,” I said, shaking my head. “Was that Keeper inside the trial? What was he doing there?”

“It was required. My brother is the only one who possessed the knowledge to reforge you in accordance with your path,” Conflict replied, chains reaching out to the side as it took a step closer, going down on one knee, its long neck bringing its head down to look me in the eyes from only a couple feet away.

“Uh. Hi,” I said, managing to hold the massive machine-devil’s gaze. At least its breath smelled like oil, not decaying meat or anything worse.

“Success,” it said after staring into my eyes for several seconds. “The greatest success to pass through this Furnace since the fall of Old Aeternia.”

“Cool, so… we’re going to go,” I said, thumbing over my shoulder. I really wanted to see Tamrie and Inertia. And hang out with Bevel. Could stand to give Neta some scritches too.

“You must finish the final test,” Conflict said, rising up above us.

Across the room, I realized the massive doors leading in and out of the foundry were closed.

“Fine,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Would rather come back later, but… fine.”

Conflict reached towards me, a single jagged claw aimed at my forehead.

“This is going to hurt, isn’t it?” I asked, gritting my teeth, the strange dilation effect causing the being to take forever to touch my head.

To my surprise, there wasn’t any pain.

It put me in some other place. A great chamber full of enchanted machines. To my further surprise, I recognized everything present. Not necessarily in the configuration before me, but there’d been variations spread throughout the Dauntless.

I’d thought the maintenance we’d needed to do on the Dauntless’s engines had been bad, but it was nothing compared to what I found before me. Except this wasn’t because the design required constant maintenance. It was damage caused by neglect. From the damaged logs I was able to bring up, hundreds of years of it, at least.

The facility, whatever it was modeled on, was clearly meant to draw in mana and convert it into power. The components in use were insane. Even the simplest parts required tier-4 materials. All of which were conveniently sitting off to one side.

There was one big wrinkle though. I couldn’t do any of the repairs directly. Instead, there was a pair of Conflict’s builderbugs that I had to guide through the process using a control panel. It was similar to one we’d used to load and unload the runners, though it had several new controls.

A full day was spent figuring out how to get them to move around without dropping or breaking anything. Thankfully, there was a setting on the panel that let me reset the scenario.

It took me another two days to set everything in order.

After it indicated a successful repair, a notification popped up asking if I wanted to submit my solution.

When I accepted, a flash went throughout the room. Above, I could suddenly see an ocean, illuminated from beneath by the now brilliantly glowing mana-reactor.

Above, thousands of Sahevin were frozen in place, their undersides painted in stark contrast by the brilliant light.

Then the light pulsed. When my eyes adjusted, the surrounding ocean was empty.

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Weird.

A second later, I was back in Conflict’s Infinite Furnace. The being pulled its claw away from my forehead.

And then started laughing, the sound deep, resembling the pounding of a hammer on an anvil.

“Good sign,” I said, shaking my head. “I take it I passed?”

“So much closer. You have been forged well. A higher quality forged one than I could’ve hoped. Yet your flesh is too weak,” Conflict said, its laugh fading. “Remind Tender that there is more at stake than his gardens. He has held you back too long.”

“Closer to passing?” I asked. “Does that mean I failed?”

“No. You have exceeded my expectations. I look forward to what you shall accomplish, Protectus,” Conflict said, its voice almost gentle, despite the force inherent to its voice.

“Right. Well, I’ll be back for that favor,” I said, waving Bevel and Xelinda forward. “But later.”

Conflict nodded, its attention seeming to shift away from us. Still, as we made our way across the room, I couldn’t help but feel its gaze settle on my back.

“Papa, I worked on the traps, like you asked,” Bevel said, her hand held tight in mine. “I think I’ve got one for the cliff near the Halls. You said that was important, right?”

It was a distraction, and I gladly latched onto it. I’d only designed a few myself, given everything else I’d had to learn. “Yeah? Let’s see.”

Bevel laid a hand on her grimoire, which was much smaller than mine, with only a few utility spells within. A minute later, she produced a collection of loose pages using Second Quill.

Riffling through her designs, I nodded to myself. She’d done well, coming up with over a dozen different ways to kill the Sahevin en masse. Probably shouldn’t have been as proud of her as I was for that.

“Good job,” I said, ruffling my little Geneva Convention violation’s hair.

“Quite a different trial,” Xelinda said, her eyes narrowed. “How did you have time to come up with these?”

“I spent a few days inside, working on them. Just like Papa,” Bevel said, skipping as we walked, hand held in mine.

“Days? You had mentioned that such a thing was possible, yet I was inside mine for no more than an hour,” Xelinda said, looking between us. “And even that left me with a headache.”

“Oh, I still have a headache,” I said, rubbing at it, not mentioning that I’d been gone for months this time. That would be something I’d tell Tamrie, and likely no one else. No reason to worry them. Restore Form hadn’t helped the headache at all, which implied it was either soul related or part of the healing process. Considering I’d spent close to two months inside, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was both.

If it persisted, I’d swing by the Golden Halls to get a diagnostic. Honestly, I’d probably do that anyway. Conflict had kinda implied I’d gone through another qualitative change. That and the persistence of the strange distortion to how I was perceiving time gave me plenty of reason to visit.

With that in mind, we flew home. It was strange to see that so little had changed. And worrying. Would future trials with Conflict take me away for months? Years? While the extra time was useful, the disconnect I felt upon my return was disorienting.

I found Tamrie talking with Arizar in Esbee’s inn. While I’d been meaning to simply say hello the moment I saw her I was caught by a powerful need to pull her close.

The kiss that followed was just as unplanned. She stood in shock for a second before melting into me.

“That… uh…” Tamrie said, fanning herself when I released her. “I… uh… what…”

“Sorry,” I said, running a hand down her cheek. “Missed you.”

Tamrie almost seemed to melt into my hand as her brown eyes finally managed to focus on mine. She blinked a couple times, a giant smile on her face.

Arizar clearing her throat drew us out of our shared stupor, both of us flushing, reminded of the public setting. “Sorry,” I whispered again.

“Nothing worth apologizing for,” Tamrie said, clutching my hand. “You do that anytime it strikes you, you hear?”

“She’s right. You and Tamrie are always kissing,” Bevel said, managing to make me feel even more awkward as she took a seat at a nearby table.

Then she called Esbee over, which was enough for us to recover. A few seconds later and we were all ordering food.

I found myself just basking in their presence, barely speaking for the next few hours. I did feel Calbern’s absence, though it wasn’t as bad as it would’ve been without them. Despite both me and Tamrie having things to do, I found myself spending the rest of the day with her and Bevel, which seemed to please Tamrie greatly, even as she attended her meetings.

Early the next day, I made my way to the Golden Halls for an updated scan.

Body - Tier 1 - Sprouting

Strength : 1.04

Agility : 1.41

Resilience : 1.10

Vitality : 1.21

Mind - Tier 3 - Refinement, Worlds Alignment

Reaction times : 4.01

Pain Clarity : 3.51

Pattern Recognition : 5.95

Memory Retention : 6.08

Neural Dynamics : 10.47

Soul - Tier 3 (Pegasus) - 5-Slot Ensoulment, Repository Reincarnation

Progress: 1/5 Third Order Impressions, 8 Point Foundational Structure, Enshrined Astral Soul, 14% Pegasus Alignment.

Affinities: 44 Worlds, 47 Nature, 50 Storm, 53 Arcane, 19 Fire, 20 Water, 43 Earth, Air 33.

It seemed I’d actually pushed into the next tier of my mental ascension. The changes were way more noticeable than they’d been before.

Mostly it had felt natural, yet I’d noticed it during my time with the others the day before. The feeling that everything was happening in slow motion. And it was explained under Worlds Alignment.

Neural Dynamics no longer applied solely to my spells. The prolonged use of mental acceleration had aligned with my Worlds affinity to provide increased neural speed.

Luckily, it seemed to be similar to my flight. It was a muscle I could tighten or relax, though the natural resting state was roughly twice what I’d been at before. I could use mana to increase that even further, though anything past a triple rate of thought invoked a headache and caused the mana cost to rocket upwards.

The delay wasn’t the only reason the changes had been easier to notice, though. The enhancement to my Pattern Recognition made it easier to figure out the differences. And the improved Memory Retention made it easier to compare my experiences from before and after the trial.

My attention shifted upward to my Body category. I’d been making better progress from walking Tender’s paths than I’d expected.

Progress within Pegasus was doing better than I expected too. Did my time spent inside the trial move it along? That was a nice bonus, if so. Should’ve checked my status before going into the trial.

While everything else was moving along nicely, it seemed my affinity growth was slowing down. Not too surprising, considering I no longer had access to the mana of the Howling season, so was no longer casting spells constantly.

With a better understanding of my status, there was one last thing I wanted to check while I was visiting the Golden Halls.

"Utility Access Progress: Fires of the Infinite Furnace 4/4 alignments successfully completed. Depths of the Final Rest 1/4 alignments successfully completed."

One step closer to getting the place back online.

I stopped as I noticed another notice below the first.

"Primary Mana-Reactor Repairs successful. Commendation added to Magus Protectus Percival’s file. Citizen Status open for consideration.”