The room was quiet for a second and then Sam spoke again, relief evident on her face.
“So That’s your big reveal right? You don’t have like a second belly button or something?”.
Jonathan blinked owlishly and Mark took a step forward.
“You look like you don’t know how to respond, were you that worried about this?” he said as a grin began to grow on his face.
Jonathan looked down at the steak and frowned.
“I thought I’d get more shock and horror at least, but yeah. Ever since the fight against Grace, I’ve had to consume two to three of these things a day to stay sane.”
Mark shrugged.
“Okay, and what happens if you don’t get one?”
“Gets hard to think of anything else. You guys are taking this too lightly, I’m literally eating raw meat here.”
Sam chuckled.
“So you’re saying it gets hard to think when you get hungry? Welcome to the human race.”
Jonathan frowned as his posture became more frustrated.
“You guys are not taking this seriously, it’s inhuman.”
Mark snorted now.
“Look, Jonathan, we’re not downplaying this, it's just, that we’ve all changed so much from what ‘human’ is, and we’ll continue to change. If you need to eat more food, then as things go, that's a fairly good outcome.”
Sam hummed along with Mark.
“And as I said, I know you. If it were a real problem you would have come to us.”
Jonathan looked deflated but at the same time, reassured.
“Well… I didn’t expect that.”
Sam swatted Jonathan over the back of the head, a tap he probably barely felt.
“At this point, you’re doubting me? Doubting us?”
Jonathan shook his head right away.
“I’m not, it just feels new and weird.”
Sam hummed and looked like she had something she wanted to say
“Mark’s right though, we’ve all changed. He can practically talk to the Corruption. Your diet became more unique. And I… well I figured something out about cosmic magic”
Mark wanted to correct her that it wasn’t really talking, but her words made him pause.
“What do you mean?”
Jonathan looked at her now as well.
“... well you guys remember when were almost killed in the first dungeon delve and I had use that magic… I had to give up a piece of myself to cast it. The thing is, I think something took its place or… you know what just look.”
Sam lifted the front of her shirt, exposing the skin below her ribs. A small patch of flesh on the left side had taken on deep purple hues as though violently bruised, and yet there was something more to it. It shimmered as though tiny stars were present against her skin, flickering behind it, like some sort of otherworldly scar. Mark and Jonathan looked at her with equal measures of anger and concern.
“Why in fuck, didn’t you tell me this was happening-”
“What the hell, why didn’t you speak to us sooner-”
Both of them speaking at once caused Sam to hold up her hands.
“There’s nothing either of you can do, it appeared a couple of days after that and there was just so much going on that I didn’t have time to tell you guys.”
Mark rolled the sleeve to his left arm up to his elbow, and then the right.
“I’ll be the judge of that, and Jonathan, we originally came here to check on you, so both of you are getting a full check-up.”
Jonathan looked towards Sam and squinted at her, who just shrugged in turn.
Mark didn’t wait for excuses and got started. Placing his hands on both of their chests. As he did so, he started with [Prana pulse] sending his energy in and letting it search for problems. It was strange, the moment Mark’s Prana mixed with their power he could feel almost no resistance. Prana could circumvent most of the body's natural defenses, even the person’s Will to a certain extent, but that was because it could not harm.
However, even as compatible as Prana was with the body, it was still Mark’s energy, and when it moved through another, there was always a cost, insignificant as it was. That was why Mark could always heal himself faster and with less energy than anyone else.
In the case of Sam and Jonathan, that cost no longer seemed to exist. Mark’s Prana swept through them in an instant and returned unable to find anything wrong with them.
Mark had expected this so he weaved Mana into the mix of returning energies and cast [Nature control]. He wasn’t trying to change anything, just take a look.
The world crashed in around him as two tapestries expanded on either side of him, stretching out onto the horizon, faint pieces almost seemed to connect in the space between, but faded from sight before completing the link.
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For the first time in a while, Mark had the space to study them, and he did so now. Trying to understand the movements of each strand.
Jonthan’s tapestry looked as though it had suffered burns, scattered throughout. Blackened holes filled with writhing smoke rose to complete the weave of threads. They were mismatched and irregular, but when Mark got closer they seemed to awaken and thrash about. Tearing up more of the natural threads, Mark took a step back and tried to calm them. He could feel a bestial instinct residing there, enhanced smell, sight, and hearing. Taking a closer look he followed the lines and could see a toughened physical form, along with a major uptick in stomach acid strength.
The transformation had been moving in some direction, but it had almost completely halted now. Things shouldn’t get worse for him, but they wouldn’t get better either.
Frowning to himself, Mark knew immediately if he came at those patches with either Prana or Mana, they would revolt and very possibly hurt Jonathan.
There was of course another option, Mark didn’t know how he felt about leaning on this new core too much, but he’d be stupid to not try everything to help Jonathan. So Mark let a tendril of Corruption loose from his core and layered [Draw Corruption] over his first spell.
Immediately Jonathan's tapestry seemed to calm in the presence of the Corruption.
The whisp of black tried to feed into Jonathan, but when the spell took hold it became a bridge between Mark and him. Tiny shreds of smoke began to pull away from the tapestry leaving empty gaps. Mark sent his energies to follow up in that area and luckily the threads of smoke were occupied, allowing Mark to begin to regrow Jonathan’s natural weave.
The biggest problem MArk could see with this method was the abysmal rate at which the Corruption separated from Jonathan. The speed was so gradual that Mark could barely feel himself making any progress at all. Going any faster than this could easily cause Mark to misstep here, and that was not something he could afford. Letting [Draw corruption] fade he could tell that his own reserves had barely risen.
Mark didn’t feel down though, it would take a while but he’d found a way to help the guy.
Sam’s tapestry was next, and in many ways, it was similar to Jonathan's, minus the damage. Instead, hers looked wholly intact, save for a small node near the center of her being. Mark had to zoom in to get a better look, but when he did, he could make out a cluster of threads all turned in on one another.
Unlike Jonathan’s, this was not damage that had been repaired. It looked like an entirely different tapestry meshing perfectly with her own. Near the edges where the new met the old, they merged, overlaying one another.
Seeming to allow for a dual nature.
What that would be was anyone's guess, but Mark had never seen anything like it.
Interestingly her situation was more time-sensitive than Jonathan's.
Where Jonathan's problem would not advance, hers still looked to be progressing. The secondary net of threads seemed to be growing at a gradual pace and might only stop when it had encased hers entirely.
Mark focused in as far as he could and noticed that the larger the new tapestry grew, the faster it advanced. It was compounding onto itself.
The change didn’t look harmful, it might even come with some benefits, but this was not his choice to make. Pulling himself from the spell. Mark opened his eyes.
Jonathan seemed to be grimacing in pain, while Sam looked concerned.
“Right, so Jon, I figured out how to help you, but it's going to take some time. Sam yours is another story. Has that patch on your body grown recently?”
Mark went on to explain what he’d seen in their tapestries.
Jonathan grunted.
“Whatever you did hurt like a bitch, but something does feel different, better… I guess.”
Mark nodded to this and looked over to Sam. She’d been listening but seemed lost in thought Finally she nodded, though she didn’t look all that worried.
“It has grown but as strange as this sounds, I don't fear it. I’d like to see where this goes. Do you think you could check on it later and help me study its process?”
Mark grimaced.
“As far as I can tell the change is coming from your side. It doesn’t seem to be harmful right now, but if you’re certain, Yes, I can keep an eye on it for you.”
“Thanks, I’d appreciate it. What about you? You’re checking our conditions, but have you looked into your own?”
Mark started to say he had but realized with all the recent goings on he’d not had a proper look at his tapestry in a while. Closing his eyes Mark sunk back into the spell and gingerly took a step back to stare at his own tapestry. It was still slightly unnerving but he got over the feeling quickly. Just like the others, his had countless strands stretching off into the horizon. A few faded off into the shadowy void, but as a whole, it was rather complete. Numerous lines weaved together to form and flat plane, he could even see the areas he'd attempted to repair, but the longer Mark looked at it the stranger it got. The threads seemed to pulse with tiny amounts of light and as they did so he could see them all heading off in one direction, like microscopic highways. Their lights head down until they reached the bottom, and it was then that Mark had to take a step back and view it as a whole. What he saw was similar to both Jonathan and Sam and yet completely different from them both.
Woven among the lower half of the tapestry, Mark could make out a near-perfect circular patch of blackened smoke that seemed to be contained. All of the strands culminated at this point, their multitude of pulses, reaching the perimeter and halting the black threads from expanding out. The longer He looked at it the more it reminded him of the new core that resided in his abdomen. Getting closer didn’t help at all, as the strands of black were so obscured that it was nearly impossible to tell them apart from his natural strands.
From looking at it, Mark couldn’t tell if this was a bad thing or not. It felt stable but that was about all. Rising up out of his spell Mark decided to see what Sam and Jonathan thought of this. There was nothing Mark could do about it now, as neither seemed to know, but it did spark another important discussion.
"Talking about outer cores have either of you figured anything out about what the Caretaker said?"
Sam scratched her neck
“I’ve looked into it, and the only thing I can say with certainty is that each of the cores is trying to become complete. And going off what the Cartaker and you told us Mark, this happens when they no longer leak energy… but.”
Mark inclined his head for her to go on.
“But, it seems like there’s a good reason it does this. When one reaches the threshold, each of their cores offers a huge boon. For Prana, you said you would be essentially immortal right? For Mana, I think it will accelerate our mental capacities to incredible degrees. Instant recall, a major increase in calculation ability, along with comprehension speed. As for Aura…”
Sam looked over to Jonathan, who frowned.
“I tried to feel out what we were talking about and found something interesting about the final Aura threshold. Similar to conduits, our bodies undergo a tempering of sorts, making them far more resilient, and possibly denser, I don't know. But more importantly, I’d be able to bear Aura manifestations directly with my flesh.”
Mark was surprised Jonathan seemed so interested in the tests, but their findings made Mark’s brow furrow.
So what are you guys saying? There’s no way to do it differently, or better even?
Sam crossed her arms and hummed.
“I’m not saying that. All I’m pointing out is that there's a reason it's done this way. Now we can start looking at how we break that mold.”
Sam scratched her head.
“For example, you want your Prana to be free to cycle around you, right? What if we created a natural connection between the cores and built them up like that? Having them work together, rather than as separate qualities, could mean your Mana would naturally carry your Prana and visa versa.”
Mark immediately loved the idea, but Sam delivered the next line with a frown.
“That's all theoretical though, and if you did decide to do it that way, the likelihood of getting the other bonuses is slim to none.”
Mark hummed, he could see where her mind was going with that idea, but then was he willing to gamble on the off chance whatever he got was better?