Robert sat on a nearby mountain, eating some snacks and watching the sunset. His star had ticked up by five percent since they left the interspace, a huge advancement since the costs to upgrade abilities went up exponentially. As he pondered, Robert decided to take a huge step forward. But he needed Amanda and Noah present. He entered the liminal void and left inside Amanda's living room in the female dorm.

"Amanda?" He knocked on the door.

"Coming! Robert, is that you? What's wrong?" She opened the door wrapped in a bathrobe. "Is everything okay?"

"Yes. I need your help with one thing. I decided to attempt the void heart tempering. I think I'll need the extra essence in today's fights."

"And how may I help you?"

"If the tempering fails, It'll blow up my heart. I don't think I will die before my passives rebuild it but I want someone to at least keep some cardiac massage going until I come back to my senses."

"Sure," she said halfheartedly.

"If you don't want to—"

"No. It's okay. I just don't like the idea of you blowing your own heart."

He dipped his head. "I'm sorry. But I need the void heart if I want to open the void gates of Nirvana and get the extra passive essence generation."

"Let me change into something more suitable for outdoor activities and then we can do it."

She closed the door. Robert drew in a big breath. Sometimes, it was hard to resist the temptation.

*

*

Amanda came out of her bedroom in casual clothes and an apron. She looked like a housewife and Robert drew in another big breath.

"We're going to do that in my bathtub. Come on in!" Amanda said.

"What?"

"Look, if you are going to blow up your own heart, the best place is in the bathtub. Easy to clean, easy to support you should you go unconscious, and medical services are one phone call away."

He didn't argue further. Robert changed into swimming trunks and laid down in the empty bathtub.

Now it was Amanda's turn to draw in a big breath and hold it. Robert's body had changed a lot in the last six months. He barely resembled the down-on-his-luck passage delver she met. But then again, she wasn't the wavering, noncommittal girl she was back then. She owed a lot to him and if helping him attempt assisted suicide was one way to repay that, she'd gladly stare at his chiseled body. She meant, to help him.

"I have some injectable healing supplies here that are about to expire. If you go unconscious, I'm stabbing you over the heart with them."

"Sure. Why do you have them?"

"To heal myself if needed. But since I hired someone... they were gathering dust inside my ring."

"So, here goes nothing," Robert said and closed his eyes. Resting his head on the bathtub edge, he focused inward. The void heart required him to convert his whole heart into void flesh, just like the veins but a hundred times more complex. Robert took raw Life essence and wrapped it around his heart, forcing it to stop beating. With the muscular organ completely still, his blood pressure started to drop. He had little time. Robert took a lot of Void essence and directed it to condense around his heart. It was made easier because of his alchemical baths. He had to lay down an even film of void essence and then let it infuse the heart and change it.

He started to feel cold. His hesitation was costing him precious time. Robert pushed the essence and then coughed. It was what he couldn't do. His heart exploded and he coughed a mouthful of blood.

Amanda injected him. With the last moments of consciousness, Robert triggered Reconstruction. Then he went unconscious.

*

*

When he woke up, Amanda was rubbing his forehead with a warm cloth.

"Hey, I'm back to life." He grinned faintly.

"Jerk!" She had bloodshot eyes.

"I coughed."

"I saw it."

"My heart blew up."

"Mine almost did too."

"Sorry."

"Jerk!"

"I'm trying again. How long did I stay out?"

"Ten minutes. Too little."

Robert looked down at his body and saw no blood. "Thanks for cleaning me up."

Amanda looked away and blushed. "Just finish this stupid tempering!"

Before he attempted for the second time, he checked his Ethercosm. Just as he suspected, Serendipity had jumped by six percent.

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This time, he didn't hesitate. Robert cycled the Jade Mind tempering to ease his worries and just moved the essence and let it seep into his heart, without any ceremony.

The black shell for the void heart formed. Now, he had to finish crystallizing it.

He opened his eyes. "It worked," he told Amanda.

"Congratulations. Did you know your veins are very dark now?" She said as she handed him a mirror.

Robert looked at his reflection. Under the right light, his veins did look very dark. He put a finger to his neck and noticed another thing. He no longer had a heartbeat. But he knew his brain was receiving the proper amounts of oxygen and that his cells were getting the proper nutrition.

Though the transformation of the void heart happened at once, the reservoir depended on the technique's evolution. Robert had to cycle and sacrifice Void essence to expand the heart and make it deeper so it could hold more essence for him. This reservoir was part physical and part metaphysical.

"Take a bath and change clothes. I'm going to wait in the living room," Amanda said as she tossed a towel in his face.

*

*

Robert entered the living room. Amanda was lying sideways on the couch, nibbling on some salty sticks, and watching a re-run of Madam Morleppe's Fabulous Conversations, a late-night talk show. The over-the-top host was a worldwide famous four-star Arch, reported, and TV celebrity.

"Hey," he called.

She spun on the couch and studied him from head to toe. "Did you already eat dinner?"

"Yes. I spent a lot of biomass today."

"What are you going to do tonight? Hit the library?"

"No. I will try to upgrade the void heart. Right now, its additional storage capacity is crap. I'll use the Gurglock passage if you don't mind."

She tapped her chin, "Gurglock, gurglock, what is this?"

"It's the name I gave to the fish people we fought."

"Oh, so you can name the disgusting fish people but not the goth girl I fought." Amanda threw a rock at the fourth wall.

"What?"

"Never mind!" She said, turning back to watch the TV and eat her snacks. "You can clear that passage if you want. But if you find a Lightning treasure, it's mine."

Robert used his primary talent and vanished, leaving Amanda feeling like Commissioner Gordon.

*

*

Fairy-Robert flew around the Gurglock Thunderstorm Realm, draining the essence and life of entire tribes of fish people. He found an ocean that was literally churning with millions of fish people. The realm seemed to be as vast as a planet, which it might well be. His Void Heart needed a ton of Essence to increase the storage capacity. It was an all-you-can farm buffet!

He still needed to put a wedge of distorted space to split the rain. Robert fired a wide-scale "Zoltraak" void lance and carved a swath of ocean, angering thousands of gurglocks. They emerged, trying to find the attacker, only to get cursed with drain essence. After he cursed a few of the oceanic monsters, he let the curse run its course. It started to spread. And spread. It became an essence drain pandemic. With exponential growth, it only stopped when it reached an equilibrium. The infected gurglocks died before they could infect another gurglock.

"Plop!" A Prime Vestige fell into the ocean, having just been manifested around Robert. The aquamarine ball with a stretched face and red eyes was floating. Robert swooped down and touched it, storing it in his ring. The essence kept coming.

Robert fried his essence channels again as he directed several times his essence pool into the void heart, deepening its capacity to store essence. The feeling was exhilarating even though it was painful.

His tempering ticked upward in record time. In a single night, he went from zero to a hundred percent. His essence drain and spatial distortion spells also improved greatly as he practiced with both.

With his goal reached, Robert used his primary talent, instantly dispelling all of the dozen copies of the essence drain spell he had ongoing. He went back to the passage to sleep (in human form) and recover from the extreme farming session.

Then, back in fairy form and invisible, he waited for five minutes to gain roughly eight hours in the liminal void before he zipped through the passage and used his main talent once again.

He appeared in a bathroom stall inside the massive gathering dome. Robert went to one of the concept trading stations and scrolled through the list of concepts to apply to his void heart.

Vastness was a good contender. It would probably increase the storage capacity.

Depth. Satisfaction? Somehow that concept resonated with the void heart. Generosity? Greed? Reliability? His eyes laid on one in particular. Refreshment. How would a void heart refresh itself? Wait.

Here. Multiplication. What if the void heart could multiply the essence stored in it? It would be like a savings account, generating more essence as interest. It was a shot in the dark.

No. None of these. He wasn't feeling like gambling with the void heart. He selected a concept that was a surefire way to improve it.

Capacity.

He captured the stunned vestige and added the concept to his void heart. Now at stage 1 0% with the concept of Capacity, his void heart could store half as much essence as a full star.

Now he needed to fill the void heart to test its capacity. Instead of going back to the Gurglock realm, Robert went to use one of the gathering chambers. This early in the morning, the chambers were open and charged.

*

*

They conveyed at the gym before going to the stadium.

"I hope you two had a good night's sleep," Noah said.

"I did," Amanda said with a yawn.

"I slept for over a hundred hours this night," Robert joked. "And I got the void heart tempering up to stage 1."

"God, please watch out for this stray daughter of yours!" Amanda prayed.

"Good. How much extra capacity does it grant?" Noah asked.

"That was exactly the concept I improved it with. I got fifty percent more essence storage."

"That is quite the boon," Noah cheered. "I suppose you have already filled it."

"Yes, it works just as my stars to hold essence. I saw no difference drawing essence from the void heart or the stars."

"Good, good."

"I also got an idea for another Fairy tempering. I haven't yet worked on the shell but it is almost a done thing. I am calling it elemental attunement. My hunch is that this tempering will increase my resistance to elemental damage and effects. Maybe, tonight I'll work on developing this tempering."

Amanda hissed and shot a glare of fake envy.

"I also got one treasure, but not a Lightning affinity treasure. I manifested another Prime. Here, Amanda. You can do the honors."

He handed the Prime Vestige to her. Amanda clapped her hands and received it. "Prime Vestige!" Reveal your secrets!

"Gwrlwrlwrlwrlwrl!" The Prime Vestige answered in the Gurglock language.

"What the hell?" She cursed. "Can't you speak English?"

"Yes," the Prime Vestige answered.

"Then tell me what is your talent!" Amanda protested. "And don't gurgle or I'll send you to Prime Vestige hell."

"Command the bones within your own body or those of the fallen, reshaping them to your will," The Prime Vestige said.

"And what are your affinities?" Amanda asked.

"Life, Unholy, and Metal!"

"Wow!" Amanda wowed.

"Wait. Is this one of the illegal Prime Vestiges, professor?" Robert asked.

"Not really. Unholy is an affinity many frown upon but it is not illegal," Noah answered.

Robert approached the ugly ball. "Can your talent mend my broken bones if I took you into my soul?"

"Yes! And you can prevent them from breaking too!"

"Oh! Can the user of your talent grow bone claws?"

"Bone claws, bone teeth, bone swords."

"Change bone density?" Noah asked.

"Yes, sure."

"Animate the dead?" Robert asked.

"Puppeteer is more like it," The Prime Vestige answered.

"You can raise the dead with the Unholy affinity," Noah stated.

"Do the bones need to be from humans or a particular species?" Amanda asked.

"No. Any bones!"

"Can the talent make bone armor, bone weapons, and bone shields?"

"That and more! Bone crockery. Bone furniture. Bone art.

"That Prime Vestige could sell for over two hundred million dollars," Amanda declared.

"Healing, equipment, offense, defense..." Noah enumerated.

"And three powerful affinities."