The Celestial Forge

By: Schin Ka'Tharos

CHAPTER 12

(Part 2)

(Part 2)

I laid the five Rendings out in front of me as I sat in a lotus position. I do not repeat mistakes. I would approach this attempt at consuming the celestial manna with more caution. Given the state of my soulcore I would consume one Rending at a time and test out the results.

Seeing the Rendings laid out before me brought back memories of my childhood. My grandfather had given me a handful of small celestial rain shards to play with. They were one of my favorite toys as a young boy and I had conjured up many games in which to play with them. One of my favorites was target practice with the scorpions and other pests which bothered our farm's crops. I had fumbled my way into a makeshift forging technique that allowed me to pinch the stone, infuse it with my technique, and then launch the pebble sized manna out at great speeds. I had spent many hours protecting our crops in this manner and was always proud to show grandfather how many scorpions I had stopped from the blood fruit.

My thoughts drifted to wondering where those pebbles may now be. Probably annihilated like everything else on our farm.

I stoked my Natural Flame and broke myself from my reverie. I then selected one Rending and consumed it while activating my grandfather's soulforging technique the Heart of Five Foundations. Compared to the vast essence contained within my grandfather’s gift, the paltry essence within the one Rending was ludicrous. However, even a few drops of water is a miracle to a man dying of thirst.

Activating the Heart of Five Foundations was akin to trying to recall a fading memory or trying to sing a melody without being able to hear yourself. I didn't have any of my five flowlines opened anymore and my Soulcore was essentially not functioning. My one advantage was my experience of having already had my 1st flowline opened and having already walked the path of a 1st Apprentice.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The fading memory of my Forging technique was enough to guide me and I began to feel my first flowline stir. Right before I nudged the flowline fully opened I stopped. My intuition and body was telling me I needed to address my soulcore first. I turned my attention to my broken soulcore and instead of forcibly Forging the celestial manna into patterns through my flowline I used my will to merely contain the manna as I increased my Natural Flame. I superheated the manna and as the Cinder impurities became exposed it began to swirl in a slow vortex and I gathered it to the center of my soulcore while I diverted what manna I could purify towards my soulcore itself. I released my will and allowed the new essence to naturally interlace directly into the shattered remnants of my old soulcore. The new met the old as my Natural Flame blazed engulfed them and slowly the sphere reformed..

After what felt like hours I stirred from my meditative Forging state. My soulcore was renewed although the outer shell was extremely fragile and thin. With a formed soulcore but without my first flowline opened I was merely halfway into the 1st Apprentice stage and becoming a Forger once more and I was taking a new backwards pathway.

The Cinder still swirled in the middle of my soulcore like a small ominous nebula. Its presence made me shudder. Since the celestial rain my grandfather had given me was completely pure, this was the first time I had experienced the impurity of Cinder within me. The Rending I had consumed, while valuable, still had a very high percentage of impurities and I had not been able to burn any of it off at all. Cinder is one of the main components why it takes weeks, months, or years to fully assimilate celestial manna. I felt like I had extracted a fair amount of the celestial essence but there was still much more to be gleaned in the future.

The next two Rendings followed the same procedure. My soulcore took every scrap of celestial essence I could pull from the next two Rendings to finally settle into a solid first outer layer. My soulcore was finally fully reformed and I could finally open my first flowline and truly become a 1st Apprentice once again.

I spared a quick moment of dark mirth to find amusement in my joy at becoming a 1st Apprentice again. How pitiful. Most nine year olds in Ildara are 1st Apprentice.

I picked up and consumed the fourth of the Rendings. It had been at least eight hours since I had started to soulforge. My hope was to finish within the next couple of hours. The siblings were Forgers, they knew how long it can take to soulforge celestial manna when first assimilating it but the surrounding circumstances bothered me. I felt exposed. I knew this was literally my only option of surviving my deteriorating state but my recent disaster of consuming the heavenly manna weighed heavy on my mind.

With the fourth Rending I finally truly used the Heart of Five Foundations and pushed to open my first flowline. The first flowline. I would finally reopen the flowline to my lungs and circulatory system.

Next Chapter ...

CHAPTER 13