Seras and Athena waited as one of the many asteroids in the astral space drifted closer.

In a real asteroid field, the distance between asteroids would be much further apart. Hundreds of kilometers at the very least. But in here the space between them was much more manageable at only a handful of kilometers apart.

It finally drifted into range and Seras activated her new power. In an instant her form and Athena’s winked out of existence, like an ancient television screen. And a moment late they were standing on the other asteroid.

Athena stumbled for a step, but caught herself before she fell. Seras on the other hadn’t felt none of the effects of her newest ability due to her original astral affinty racial trait.

Teleport. Teleports target and one other to a distance within range. Range ranks up with each minor threshold.

Cost High Mana

Recharge time 1 minute.

You have awakened three of five technology essence abilities. Awaken all abilities to progress to bronze

Its range was pitiful since it was just a newly awakened Iron rank ability. Seras couldn’t help but smile every time it worked, even with her head pounding from a low mana headache.

This was a real magic power. Way cooler than her pocket space, shape metal, or her stupid glowing finger.

But it was also a power-hungry ability, Seras’ thought she could handle the headache after dealing with her soul condition. She thought one pain would outweigh the other, nope. She just had two independent kinds of agony a play.

But with Astral wellspring the pain was at least fading at a decent pace.

The ability seemed like a pretty inconsequential one at first, the little bump in mana and recovery she got wasn’t much compared to the upgrades you got from ranking up the spirit attribute. But a little research revealed that the racial ability was a set modifier of her spirit attribute, meaning that with every rank up she would get more and more than her peers.

Not that she was guaranteed to go very far into it. Spirit was bound to her tech essence, of the three abilities it had two were utterly useless right now.

Supposedly there were no bad essences or abilities, and with the book on Magitech Seras could finally start to see some use for her first ability. Inscribe rune/circuit. She even had a few ideas she wanted to test out.

But the other one, spark of madness, was a familiar power with an insanely expensive summoning cost.

Thousands of iron rank coins in total expenses, the kind of money some people would never earn in their lifetimes.

But now Seras had the coolest magic power she could imagine at the moment, and it alone redeemed the tech essence.

The first asteroid they had been on was little more than a barren rock, maybe 500 meters in diameter, it was one of a dozen other similar sized Asteroids that were much more mobile than the massive island sized rocks with actual features. They had teleported from the first to a second small one and waited until it passed within range of the one they had just teleported onto.

Seras and Athena both surveyed their new surroundings warily. The first asteroid they had fallen onto had been barren of any distinguishing features or vegetation. This one however was not so desolate.

Strange neon bushes dotted the landscape, only instead of leaves they had long swaying fronds like that of a sea anemone. Tall stalks of narrow bright purple mushrooms towered over head, swaying gently through no wind could be felt. And thick vines of an ivy like plant covered the ground, only instead of a natural green these had an artificial looking red, blue and yellow coating that reminded of colorful wires.

“We should take samples.” Athena said in wonder.

“Samples, why?”

“Because I don’t recognize any of these plants. If these are the kinds of plants that only grow in this astral space then they’re a rare, and eccentric, commodity some alchemists and researchers will pay for. We should also note the conditions we harvested them in.”

Seras looked around a saw spirit coins everywhere she looked. “Your right, one sec.” she summoned up two iron rank knifes with simple enchantments, she passed one to Athena, kept one for herself, and began to tear into the foliage with quick incise cuts.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

They were exploring the Astral space, hoping they might kind any signs of an exit. But that didn’t mean they couldn’t collect samples while they were at it.

“So, how did you know about the plant thing?” Seras asked as she worked at uprooting the anemone plant.

“I had lessons on all sorts of things growing up. History, economics, and even herbology. Anything to prepare me for my future. You’d be surprised how often adventures walk right past rare and valuable plants.”

“Uhuh,” Seras grunted as she pulled the bush up, “so you being trained to become an adventurer?”

Athena stopped cutting, and then cursed, “you did it again.”

Seras grinned, “not intentionally, but you let it slip.”

She groaned, “yes, my whole life has been spent in preparation for life as an adventurer. My parents even spent a fortune to get me a pretty expensive set of essences, and even more on awakening stones when my first power turned out to be a dud.”

“Which one is that?” Seras asked.

In lieu of an answer Athena held up one arm, the one missing a hand and half of the forearm. She let it fall at her side and went back to cutting. “I had inherited my mother’s life affinity, and I didn’t have the right personality for a front-line fighter. So, it was decided that I’d make a good healer. Any healer confluence would have done the job, but my parents had this idea in their minds. You can make a powerful, nigh immortal fighter with the immortal confluence, but the life and renewal confluence could also give you healing powers. Healers aren’t normally tough, some get shields or summons, but a healer is a weak point in a team's structure. But if you could make an immortal healer who healed herself and her teammates then you’d have a healer who wouldn’t fall until her whole team had fallen first.”

Seras considered her words. She was new to the world of magic and essences, but that did sound like a good combination. “Sounds pretty solid to me.”

“Exactly. Unless the first ability your daughter awakened was the kind that put her in constant pain and danger every time she used her primary ability. A self-sacrificial power set.”

Seras nodded. “I’ve read about those, rare, but supposedly potent. Thought the ones I read of were about taking wounds and dealing retributive damage, or burning health to make mana.”

“You're not wrong, but mine is riskier. I don’t get to choose what I take, and I feel everything. I would turn the wounds meant for an entire team of people into my own, even if I heal faster than anyone else I would be in constant pain for every fight we entered.”

Seras saw it now. It was just them down here, and Athena had only recently taken on Seras’ injuries. But how many superficial cuts and bruises had she alone taken? She had been partially melted by the Kudzu, dented her head, and nearly got eaten by the Star glider. A whole team of adventurers would be far worse.

But still, “it’s a powerful ability. Healing is supposed to be useless on me. The only bit of biological tissue I’ve got is behind several layers of defenses. But your powers work on me.” Seras pointed out.

“That’s because its not really healing, not when I take on wounds. It’s a karma power, I take on your wounds like a martyr and generate good karma to enhance my healing. One of my human essence gifts transformed into a karmic affinity, or at least that’s what the magic society examiner said.”

Seras had bent over a cut away several of the brightly colored vines, they were filled with this gooey sap that got everywhere. She pulled out some jars to stick them in.

“And your parents weren’t too happy about that?”

Athena pursed her lips. “They, well, it's hard to explain this. But my family has a lot of experience with essence powers. They know you can’t dictate a powerset, and how to work with what you get. But the way things were going meant I wasn’t going to see a shift in how my powers developed unless they got some really specific awakening stones, which are the most expensive kind. So, they were working a lot, taking on profitable but risky contracts all over the world, and since they felt like I needed to broaden my horizons I got to come with. I’ve been to almost every continent, even the Draconian one.”

“Which ones that?”

“The one on the bottom of the world, though they insist it’s the top. Stubborn arrogant pricks.” She muttered the last bit.

Seras heard that Draconians were a proud people, in some that became an admirable trait, in others it made them jackasses. It gave Draconians a bad reputation for became racial supremacists. “If that’s there continent then how’d they get an empire on the west side of this one.”

“Colonialism. The mountains that make up there eastern border is the home to many of the continents native dragons, and Draconians like being near that sort of thing. The original kingdom they founded fractured some few hundred years ago, which lead to a period of internecine strife until the current emperor rose to gold rank and crushed his rivals.”

“Off track.” Seras noted.

“Right, we were just moving on, right.” She said hopefully.

“Haha, funny, no, you were about to tell me why you ran away.” Seras said with a fake laugh.

“I’d rather not, it sounds stupid. Especially after getting kidnapped by the Omeda.”

“Alright, but I hope you know that what I’m probably imagining is much worse than the truth.”

“I doubt that.” She said flatly.

“You’d be surprised. I’m guessing from your general traits that there at least a bit of eugenics involved.”

Athena looked disgusted, “that’s revolting, no!”

“Yeah sure. Tell me, is the rest of your family generally like you. Tall, strong, hot.”

Athena gawked, “I… I don’t see how that’s relevant.”

“Mmm hmm.” Seras said unconvinced.

“Its not like that, its just. We’re all adventurers, good ones, we meet other good adventurers in our duties and things just work… out.” Athena paused as she considered her words.

“Hah, your families totally some sort of eugenics breeding program!”

“We’re not!”

“Its fine, at least your not inbred jawless freaks.”

She had a puzzled look on her face “jaw…less?”

“Its how the royalty of my word went. Years of inbreeding left them with the weakest jaw line I’ve ever seen.”

“I guess without magic that sort of thing could happen.”

“It doesn’t here?”

“The church of fertility has ways of preventing that.” She said dismissively.

“That sounds like you’re speaking from experience. Were your parents cousins as well as eugenics babies?”

She stuck her tongue, “no, you’re disgusting. My mom was an Elf! It’s just a rumor I heard about a royal family once. And my family doesn’t have a eugenics program!”

Seras rolled her eyes, “right, and just naturally the kind of perfect people on my world pay millions to fake.” She said sarcastically.

“You’re a pig!”

Seras smirked; she was just going to finish up with her patch of the underbrush when she came across something odd. She stopped and reached down to grab the mysterious object.

“What's that?” Athena asked as Seras lifted it up.

The object was dirty, with some plants already taking root in one of the gaps, but it was clearly a metal of some kind. Seras turned it over and part of the object flopped at the ball hinge.

“Is that a…” Athena said incredulously before trailing off.

“Yeah.” Seras confirmed as they stared at the metal object.

It was dirty, rust in places, and splattered with flakey black blood, but still very clearly a metallic arm and hand. But of a cruder make than Seras’ or any from her world made in the last century.

It looked more like a giant doll’s limb, or something from an android. Something designed to look human-like while still clearly not a real limb.

How did it get here?