Throughout the next few days, Peaches was in and out of the house. She had been training multiple skills and popped in to ask questions. It seemed like she was really focused on blocking teleports and mana absorption. I just helped her where I could and let her do her own thing.
Chris, Alec, and occasionally Riley were sent out to investigate more reports of mana monsters. There were two other hero candidates that had reported seeing the bubbly water. A few times they had run into mana monsters but couldn’t find the source. When I sent Chris and Alec to help, Riley would sometimes stare at me, waiting for the invite. I had no idea why some people didn’t actually voice when they wanted something, but I was learning to make the offer ahead of time to avoid any unnecessary hurt feelings or conflicts.
Each time they returned, I would notice more and more how lacking the low levels are if they don’t have bloodlines. Alec had to do most of the work because Chris, Riley, and whichever candidate had requested the assistance were just not powerful enough to take care of it. This prompted me to just let all the candidates have a huge power jump.
“Sim, I think we should push each of the candidates to prove themselves. Let’s expand every candidate's mana channels to the max that their body can handle without actually changing their genetic structure. Also, grant a bunch more offensive and defensive skills. Tell them the criteria for acceptance to the hero program has changed a little, and we want to see what they can do with extreme power when it’s granted to them. Tell them that they will be called upon to help with the growing monster problem and to be prepared.”
“This will work for those not genetically acceptable for a bloodline. There are a few that I can impart a base bloodline during integration. If I max their channels now, it may affect the bloodline allocation. How would you like me to handle those?” Sim asked.
“Will it negatively affect them if you do the same thing as all the others prior to integration?”
“No, but if I impart a bloodline, the master tier channels I can impart during integration might cause one or the other to be less powerful.”
I sat and thought for a minute. I was really big on giving choices. I didn’t want to decide for them and have it not be the right decision for what they desired.
“Give them the choice. Explain the risks about the program vs. a bloodline and what may happen if they get both. Then let them choose which course of action they would like to take.”
“Understood,” Sim replied.
As we finished our conversation, I could hear Jeff in the basement. “Dad, we are almost done. Did you want to…” I appeared next to him. He didn’t jump or show any type of emotion as I teleported in.
“You’re not as fun to scare. Chris would have fallen out of his chair.”
I noticed a small smile hint at the corner of Mia's mouth. “How are you doing, Mia?”
She didn’t answer me. She had a little bit of a strained look on her face, so I activated my divine sight. What I saw was almost as amazing as Cookie's channels. She had nodes all over the place. I could see the power from her core lighting the last few one by one. As the final one began to glow, her core started speeding up. Jeff hurried and stepped back. Mia’s back arched like she was in tremendous pain. I looked at Jeff and he was smiling from ear to ear. “Watch this,” he said.
Mia started to float off the bed. I could see her mana, a peachish-orange color, getting brighter and brighter. It sped through her channels, activating all the nodes at once, and then it was going in a pattern. Largest to smallest, her hands, feet, chest, and head all activated at once. They kept getting brighter and brighter. It looked like she had miniature suns glowing from within. Suddenly there was a breeze in the room. It swirled around us like we were in the eye of a hurricane. It shifted; now there were miniature tornados dancing around the room.
The wind picked Mia up, slowly pushing her into a standing position. Her eyes were swirling like mini hurricanes inside of each iris. The beauty projected in her eyes was mesmerizing. She spread her voice throughout the room. It sounded like the wind itself had become a part of her vocal cords. Suddenly she disappeared, reappearing in each mini tornado one by one, getting faster and faster. She then appeared in all of them at once. As each miniature form solidified, they all slammed together, forming one bigger tornado, and she was back to her original form. Now approximately 5 feet tall, she stepped out and clapped her hands. The wind stopped, any trace of it disappearing in an instant. She stood there smiling. As I stood there dumbfounded at the display I had just witnessed, I noticed tears welling up in her eyes. She threw herself at me and wrapped her arms around me.
“Thank you so much for this. You have no idea what this means to me. What this will mean for the world.”
She held me for a few seconds before she tilted her head back slightly and stopped with her face about 10 inches from mine. She still had her arms wrapped around me. For some unknown reason, I was still so enamored with her. Not just with her beauty, but with her very existence. Her aura felt like it was drawing me to her. There was no possibility of me letting go until she did.
This was when she started to speak. “When I opened my central node, I had some information appear in my thoughts. I didn’t know what it was, but when I asked Jeff, he said he got close to the same thing. That’s how he knows how to help with bloodlines.
The information told me that my bloodline is actually the Matriarchal bloodline. If yours is the father of all bloodlines, mine is the mother. The connector. My bloodline combines air with sky and soul. I am able to create atmospheric pressure and build new elements, but my bloodline was originally used to create new species and grant them a soul. An underlying force joining consciousness with intelligence. It creates an intangible energy that carries traits of personality and memories. It is able to transcend death. My bloodline has been utilized in other universes to create reincarnation cycles. It was also held by the soul bonded of your bloodline. The only other existence of your bloodline.”
“Do you know what my bloodline is?” I asked.
“I don’t have any other information than that yours is a full spectrum. It contains the origin of all bloodlines. We are intrinsically linked through our shared connection. I believe that’s why I feel the pull towards you. I can see that you feel it too. We are quite literally bonded in our souls. Our bloodlines linked with our souls and bonded us on a level unseen in all but one universe. This is why I have always felt like something was missing. My power has now awakened, and I can see that it is you. You are what I’ve been missing. You are directly linked to my soul and me to yours. I don’t know if we were always linked like this, but as soon as our powers were introduced back when the universe almost ended, our souls were touched and have been seeking each other ever since. We have to do something, and it has to be now. I need to activate our bond. Will you willingly accept my bond?”
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
I stood there in absolute shock. I could feel our connection and noticed something when I first saw her, but I had no idea it would be this intimate. I just stared at her for a few seconds as she smiled at me. I felt at peace, like being in her arms was exactly where I needed to be. I leaned in and kissed her. I could feel an energy transfer through our lips. It felt like time had frozen. It wasn’t just love, it wasn't lust, it was the feeling you get when a child runs up to you as you arrive, yelling “Daddy’s home,” and then they wrap you in a hug. It was absolute perfection. As I removed my lips and looked her in the eyes, I could see tears forming, and I finally spoke. “Of course.”
Her heart node exploded with power. Her core spun faster and faster. The energy pushed out and into my channels, running through my core, speeding up my own production. My core matched her mana, now creating the same peach-colored mana. Back and forth through every node, both of our mana pushed through each of our channels and into our cores. Faster and faster until our channels seemed as one. Two cores in complete synchronization. The power grew and grew. All around us, a shell of physical mana formed. We lifted off the ground and appeared above the earth. The shell was still solidified but had strangely also become transparent. As we held each other, our cores produced more and more tendrils of mana that reached out in every direction. They began shooting down to earth. It started with one, then ten, then a hundred, then a thousand before our cores started slowing. Each tendril split on the way down and slammed into two people, activating a previously unseen connection. By the time we had almost run out of mana, more than ten thousand tendrils of peach mana had reached the surface and bonded two souls each. Just before we completely ran out of mana, we teleported back to the basement. The hard mana wheel cracked and fell away, shattering to the floor. As Mia looked me in the eyes, she leaned in and kissed me again, this time with a smile on her face. As she pulled away, she finally spoke.
“We just helped thousands of people. We just gave hundreds of people a variation of my bloodline, as well as activated some people's skills to help others find their soul bonds. There were many souls seeking their partner. Without mana to guide them, they were lost. We just helped activate the connections.”
I looked over to the side, and Jeff was dumbfounded. His mouth was hanging open with utter shock showing on his face.
“What just happened?” he asked.
I looked at Mia, still holding her in my arms, as she spoke. “We just completed the bond. We are now linked, mind, body, and soul.”
“No, I mean why did you guys phase in and out and morph into one space or one body or whatever? You kept going invisible and blending together, and then I don’t know. It was cool but really weird.” He asked, “You also disappeared for a couple of minutes before you came back.”
I just shrugged my shoulders and smiled. “You can ask her about it later.” As I leaned in for another kiss, Jeff made a scoffing noise and headed for the bed with Gabriella in it.
---
Back at Cookie's compound, she stopped dead in her tracks. Hannah stopped too. While staring at her, she wondered what could possibly be going on now. This was a normal occurrence when Cookie was trying to see something far away. Neither spoke, waiting for Cookie to explain when she finished. A minute later, she stood frozen, her complexion as white as a ghost.
“This is not good for us. We have to accelerate the plan. He found her, and they’ve already completed the bond.”
Immediately jumping into action, Hannah pulled out her phone and made a call. “Push it, right now!” she said and hurriedly hung up the phone. She helped Cookie steady herself. She had been pushing her mana expenditure to extreme levels trying to get ready for this. The preparation was the most difficult part. Everything had to be perfectly aligned and flow in the proper direction to allow for the plan to work.
As Cookie stood there, only able to stay on her feet due to Hannah holding her up, she closed her eyes and told Hannah to pull out the last of the liquid they had kept while preparing. As Hannah held the bottle out to her, she began to shake. She knew there was no turning back as soon as Cookie drank it. It would ultimately damage her channels, but in the meantime, it would give her the power to create Yggdrasil.
Cookie downed the mana in one fell swoop. Her entire body began to glow with an extremely bright pale blue light. Cookie lightly pushed Hannah away and sat in a meditation pose on the floor, crossing her legs and connecting her nodes in her middle fingers to her palms. She then rested her palms face-up on her knees, creating a circle of mana through the required nodes. In the middle of her head, a physical manifestation of the third eye opened. As she tilted her head back, she started to push her power to coalesce and shoot out of the eye. As it began to shoot, the light went straight through the ceiling, burning a hole as it passed through. She had created a mana shield connected to an existing communication satellite to reflect the power to the heart of the Amazon.
As her power hit, it started the process of converting Angelim Vermelho into Yggdrasil. Already standing an impressive almost 300 feet tall, the tree began to mutate. It started to grow, absorbing the mana that had been preset in the proper configuration. Cookie had to guide the mutation, pushing the roots further and further down until they reached the shield. The preparation for the shield's failure was complete, and the exact location would allow for virtually unlimited mana once catastrophic failure destroyed the shield. Spreading the roots in all directions allowed the tree to connect to all other trees in the entire forest, creating a hive mind among all vegetation. Eventually spreading to the entire planet, the soul of the world tree would become the ultimate protector.
As the roots grew under the hundreds of tribes living in the forest, they shot up, stabbing each and every living soul through the heart. Mana was pumped in and began the process of altering the DNA of all those within the tribes.
Every female was turned into a wood nymph. Their main role was to help the forest grow and maintain a balance among the animals and people. With a mischievous nature, all those who enter the forest would be tested to see their true nature. Friend or foe, the nymphs would find the truth.
The males all became the Dendron Aldergard, warriors created for the sole purpose of battle if anyone dared attempt to harm the forest. Able to summon the spirits of the trees, these fighters are unmatched when within range of their home.
The children were all converted to Sprouting Fawnblossoms. With their role yet to be determined, these were the most dangerous of all those in the forest. You never knew if they would play tricks on you or lead you directly to your death.
A mist slowly started to appear around the exterior of the Amazon. Completely encircling the entire forest, the mist would cause confusion and had the ability to teleport anyone who enters to a random location as a defense.
As Cookie's mana completely ran out, she collapsed again to the floor. Hannah was crying, unable to control herself after watching Cookie's life force being sucked out. Cookie looked like she was ancient, nothing left to her except literal skin and bones. Her body was mostly made of mana, so she would recover, but in the meantime, she could not even move her head.
Cookie and Hannah had prepared for this. They had set up a room completely isolated with a mana condenser collecting any mana it could find and forcing it into the room. The walls were made of Placocanite, a material that Cookie had learned was the most sought-after material in the entire multiverse. Able to withstand any physical attack and guide mana without being damaged, Placocanite was the perfect choice for the purposes of this room. There was a bed in the center where the mana would be directed to help facilitate recovery.
Hannah carried Cookie as fast as possible. At one point, this would have been difficult, but with her body being completely drained, it was like carrying a child. As she set her on the bed, she looked upon her one last time. Knowing it would take many months before she would have enough mana to recover, Hannah started to cry. “I’ll keep going,” she said. “Please get better as soon as possible.”
Hannah walked to the door and pressed the activation button. This gave her less than 10 seconds before the room would seal from the inside and start the process of collecting mana and funneling it directly to Cookie. The vault door they had created could only be opened once Cookie was healed. Purposely designed to require Cookie’s abilities to open, the door could withstand any attempts at early entry.
As Hannah walked out the door, she began to wonder if the decisions they made and actions they took were really the only way to truly obtain the end goal Cookie said was required for salvation. While she still didn’t understand the total ramifications of what they had just done, she trusted her friend. She would follow the plan and have all stations release their mana at the predetermined time and in the proper order.