Lulu Drifted to sleep a few minutes later, the vine falling out of her mouth to swing in front of her. Jiran wrapped her in his aura and gently laid her down. When he pulled his mana constricting her skill out of her manapool, she groaned like she was in pain and her toes curled. Knowing she definitely needed the sleep after her recent ordeals, he shrugged and left his mana where it was while continuing to slowly drain density from the tree’s vine.

"I think I’m going to like this place. We've got an entire forest full of density and there's a ton of tests I've been wanting to try out. Don't look at me like that, Niya. Nothing dangerous. Probably."

"Jirrrraaaaan," Niya drew out his name in an annoyed growl.

He waved her off, "I'm not going to do anything crazy in the middle of their forest. I've destroyed enough ancestral homes for one lifetime. I'm going to try and figure out how teleportation works. I got to see it used a few times in Mortan but didn't get a chance to test it myself with how crazy everything was. I'm only going to try teleporting a rock a few meters."

It took Jiran nearly an hour to refill his mana from the tree. Both Niya and Mayalyn did the same and all three of them laughed constantly at how ridiculous they looked. He changed trees three times, uncertain if draining too much from a single tree was harmful. He only briefly considered pulling the density from the trees directly by inserting his mana into them. Wanting to be respectful, he chose to wait until he at least had permission to try. Messing with tree-people ancestors seemed like something the Timberlings would get upset over.

Before he could begin his first experiment, Mayalyn pulled him to the side, glancing at Niya and then back to him. He nodded and blocked their voices. "Is something wrong?"

"No, not at all. I thought we should talk. It is important." She took a deep breath before speaking in a rush, "I am entering my heating cycle. I-I do not dislike the idea of us discovering if we can mate for real. My instincts tell me we can, especially since you became a Remalon. Perhaps now is not the time though…" She trailed off, her tongue stabbing from her mouth to taste his aura as she scanned his shifting expressions intently.

"Huh? OH! That heating cycle. I see. Uhm, uh, well, I, ahh." Jiran cut off his rambling with a shake and then took a deep breath to collect his thoughts, "I'm definitely interested. And you're right, now isn't a great time. Between the Graymin, Enders, the appearance of the Remalon, the Emperors breathing down our necks, and we can’t forget about my Unique Curse… I try not to think about it, but I know it's a large part of why things always go wrong around me. Maybe by your next cycle our lives will have calmed down. How often are your heating cycles, and how long do they last? Anything I should be aware of?"

"Once a season, for nearly a moon. Until it passes, we must not have sex. With how fertile you smell, I know I would conceive."

"Got it, no sex. I usually don't mind that you can read my emotions and not the other way around." Jiran left the rest unsaid, his brows rising questioningly.

"A part of me is disappointed, but I believe that is an instinctive response. Logically, I know we are not ready for a child. Nor have we committed to each other in a way that would foster a good environment for raising one. I would like us to speak of it before my next cycle, but not now. I may have a difficult time controlling my… urges if we begin speaking about cubs, so please be patient with me."

"Of course I’ll be patient, it’s only a moon? Thanks for telling me before things got weird. I definitely wouldn't have realized what was happening."

"Mhm," Mayalyn mumbled. "I had not planned on saying anything until later, but our conversation with Lulu made me realize it was best to be upfront, even if it is a bit awkward," She reached out and affectionately squeezed his hand.

“You’re not, ahh, worried or angry about Lulu?”

Mayalyn shook her head with a tinkling laugh, “Her crush is far too innocent and based in faith more than desire. If those feelings develop and she acquired the bravery to actually pursue you, I would put her in her place,” She gave him a wicked smile before walking back to Niya. The two then sat with their heads together, working on memorizing words from each other's language.

Well, that came out of nowhere. Cubs, huh? Can't lie, that sounds pretty awesome, if terrifying. Her nephews were so cute, would ours look like them, or me? Would they be Remalons? That's a scary thought. Little mana vampires flying around causing untold havoc…

Jiran slapped his cheeks to recenter his errant thoughts back to what he wanted to work on, teleportation. He knew the skill relied on using synapses of the framework to travel. Somehow, a bubble of mana surrounded the user and shrunk them down to a size capable of moving through the synapse. Then, they would come out at the desired location, returning to normal size. What he didn’t understand was how a bubble of mana could possibly shrink someone without crushing them to death.

He pulled a rock the size of his fist from the soil and brushed the dirt off it. With Mana Omnis at full power, he used Mana Confluence to surround the rock in a bubble of mana and pictured it shrinking in size and being sucked through a synapse to appear a short distance from him. Instead of vanishing from his hand as he wanted, the rock was crushed into dust amidst a series of rumbling cracks and pops. Thankfully, he had anticipated this outcome and blocked the sound around him ahead of time to not disturb their new guide’s much-needed rest.

What went wrong? I know intent and mental image play a huge role in anything mana-related. Did I inadvertently set myself up to fail by assuming the rock would be crushed? Could also be that you can’t teleport an inorganic object by itself. Does the process require an active mind feeding intent while inside the synapse? I could have also done the bubble of mana wrong from the very start. So many things to test!

Jiran spent several silent minutes in meditation fixing his mental image, convincing himself that he had already succeeded many times before and that there was no chance of failure. He then moved from rocks to roots, whole plants, and finally a few bugs, all without success. He racked his brain for ways to tweak the bubble of mana to not destroy whatever he stuck inside it, but nothing he tried worked.

Either I need to test it on myself, which isn’t happening, or I’m missing something fundamental to the process. My attributes weren’t as high when Lenton and Samris used to teleport me around all the time so my memory is a bit fuzzy.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

I remember there being a flipping sensation, but that was because they wanted to drop me on my head. A couple times Lenton teleported me from a distance and I didn’t feel a thing. Samris always had to touch me, I wonder what the difference between them was. It shouldn’t just be related to tiers, Lenton must have understood the fundamentals on a deeper level. Is that significant? Maybe it was due to Lenton’s aura being older, larger, and stronger.

Huh, I’m not using my aura in these tests at all. How could anyone possibly be teleported without their aura going with them?

Jiran tried another stone, mixing his aura in with the mana bubble, but once again, the stone was cracked and crushed into dust. Dust which then vanished from his hand and appeared a meter away. He leaped to his feet and threw his fist in the air with a triumphant yell. Mayalyn and Niya eyed him like he was crazy. Since they couldn’t hear him, all they saw was Jiran zipping around like a lunatic. The clouds had thinned, allowing a trickle of moonlight to turn his form into a dozen shadowy silhouettes that danced amidst the trees.

Okay, so aura is definitely a key component of the process. Ugh, that makes so much sense! Every skill builds off the previous skills. Molding is fundamental to shaping. Likewise, shaping makes channeling possible. Obviously, the manabody would make the skill that follows it—teleportation—possible. Wait, there’s an even deeper connection! Only my manabody has the ability to detect the framework, not even my remalonian eyes can see it. The aura and framework are intricately tied together in ways I still don’t understand. I need to keep that in mind for future tests that involve the framework.

The only thing I need to figure out now is this stupid bubble. How can I shrink something without crushing it? Ahh! I have no freaking clue. Nothing about it makes any sense. You can’t just make something smaller!

Wait a damn second! Didn’t I do exactly that in Mortan when I showed Niya how to make more dense materials? I removed all the space between the molecules in a rock. But you can’t do that with a person, or even a gas or liquid, as it would totally screw with the fundamental forces holding it together. A gas would become a liquid, and a liquid a solid, so obviously doing that to a person would kinda ruin their day.

Jiran pulled a small rock from a meter below him with his aura as he had already destroyed all the more easily accessible ones nearby. He pictured his mana and aura stabilizing the rock as its intermolecular spaces were reduced. Mana Confluence saturated the rock and it rapidly shrunk in size while taking on a glossy sheen. Still the size of his pinky nail, he poured more and more mana into it until it nearly vanished. Finally, it was small enough to fit inside the nearest synapse and he willed it in while safely cushioned inside a bubble of his aura and mana. The nearly invisible pebble jumped through the synapse onto the open palm of his other hand where Mana Confluence returned it to its original size.

Despite his first real success, Jiran frowned as he tossed the stone up and caught it.

Eight percent of my mana to move a rock from one hand to the other. What a joke. A normal tier six only has thirty-two mana while I have fifty-four. I seriously doubt it would cost them even one point of mana to do what I just did. I’m obviously still missing some important concepts. Then again, if I had all the answers, this wouldn’t be much fun.

His frown turned into a grin as he snagged a nearby vine and stuck it in his mouth. He blinked one eye to check on his challenger timer—an hourly habit that was surprisingly hard to break.

TIMER: 103:44:27

More than enough to wait for dawn, scour this place from the air for a day, then head back to the empire if it's a bust.

Back to teleportation. I’m probably missing some connection the soul plays in the process of safely shrinking stuff. The manabody is the key, clearly, and the manabody is the soul. Thanks to Shara, I know how I can visit my soulwall now, which might yield some answers. But I have a strong feeling that if I want to get to the bottom of this, I’ll need to actually go inside my soul.

Unfortunately, I can’t do that. Last time I tried to just push a little mana in there, Madra’s mana shredded and consumed it. My mana still isn’t a match for hers, which means going in there to learn more about the soul is off the table. That is unless I find another density absorber node, since I know they can be used to get past Madra’s mana. Well, with the help of Daughter anyway. Guess that’s next on the list then. It’s been a while since we had a chat.

Jiran formed a long tube of aura and pushed it into the tap in his neck. Mana flowed smoothly down the tube for several meters, vanishing into seemingly nothingness. His eyes were closed as he fell into the perceptions of his mana, using it to feel and see both more and less clearly than his other senses ever could. His mana reached the space before his soulwall and he pushed it against the massive wall, giving it away completely to Daughter, who he hoped was waiting inside.

The surface of his soulwall rippled as it absorbed his mana, “Hello!” Jiran happily called out to Daughter. When she didn’t answer, he added more mana and called out a little louder, “Anyone there? Calling all Daughters, Come in! Can you HEAR ME?!”

“Oh my god, shut up! Yes, every entity on this side of Madra can probably hear you!” Daughter’s voice was loud and clear in his mind.

“What? Really? How is that possible? Shit, how bad did I just screw up?” The remalon, emperors, and who knew how many other people were looking for him and the idea of broadcasting to a ton of divination entities was the last thing he wanted to consider.

“No silly! I was joking. I’m in your soul. I can connect with other entities but they can’t hear you unless I let them.”

“Oh, thank the Father’s. Not funny!”

“If you say so,” Daughter’s joyous laughter and mental hug instantly cleansed Jiran’s annoyance and he breathed a sigh of relief. His expression brightened further when he noticed his mana was trickling down much slower than any previous conversation they had ever had.

His tone was full of affection as he returned her mental hug, “It’s good to hear your voice, how are you?”

“Great now that you’re feeding me. I knew you would figure it out at some point but I didn’t expect it to be so soon.”

“Yeah, I got lucky. Since Shara’s injury was related to divination, I learned a lot. Maybe I should help people more often. Not like I’ve learned enough to make you a body again. Techniques sure do cheat, don’t they? How the heck did my old divination make you a physical form? Considering each one eats up willpower, I suppose it’s a fair trade.”

“You’ll figure it out, Father. Don’t worry, I really am happy in here, for now. As for why you called, yes, I’ll be able to help you bypass Madra’s mana and bring you into your soul when you reach another node,” She continued speaking before he had a chance to ask another question, “No, I have no idea where the nearest node is. No, I have no idea why Madra hasn’t given you a quest to find it yet. No, I haven’t heard her voice in some time. Yes, I also believe it’s because she is incredibly low on mana.”

“Hey! Cut it out. It’s nice to actually talk to you, ya know? I didn’t just call for answers.”

“That’s why I answered before you could talk! Now, we can just chat until you’re out of mana,” Despite not being able to see her, Jiran could hear the huge smile on her lips.

“Oh, works for me. One last question though: Any idea where the strongest beasts are around here?”

“Every direction will take you to what you seek. It doesn’t matter which way you go., You'll understand in the morning. Now! Tell me all about these adorable cubs you’re going to have with Mommy!”

“Pfft!” Jiran spit the vine from his mouth, choking on the sweet sap while Daughter’s cackle echoed through his skull.