Into the air above his Mind Palace Leon rose, his heart hammering in his chest.  Apotheosis.  Something he’d been working to achieve for half a century at this point, more than half his life.  He’d trained so long that his soul realm had grown to a radius of fifteen thousand miles, half again as large as a freshly ascended tenth-tier mage.  He’d made many attempts to achieve Apotheosis over these decades, all ending in failure.

But this time he felt was going to be different.  This time, with all that he’d prepared, he was going to succeed.

Alongside Leon, all of his prepared materials rose, too.  His five bottles of ambrosia, Iron Pride, and his wireframe sphere.  Xaphan remained below, but the Thunderbird transformed out of her human form and followed him into the air.  In his previous attempts, the Thunderbird had advised him to try and condense his Origin Spark a mile or more above his Mind Palace.  Xaphan had agreed, though Clear Day, whom Leon had also asked for advice, had told him he didn’t think it mattered.  Given their experience, Leon was more inclined to believe his Ancestor and demonic partner.

So, he slowed once he rose past a mile, eventually coming to a slow stop at a height where he could almost see from one end of his soul realm to the other—the only reason he couldn’t completely do so was a mountain range that he’d created surrounding most of his soul realm.  He kept the Thunderbird’s warning about combat in the Nexus possibly including invasions of the soul realm in mind and decided to use those mountains as his first major line of natural defense.

When he came to a halt, he magically manipulated the wireframe into place in front of him, hovering exactly over his throne in his Mind Palace.  Then, he channeled some of the power that surrounded him—his power that had been stored in his soul realm—into the wireframe.  The spectacularly complex enchantment on the flat bronze sides of the iron wires brightly glowed first red, then orange and yellow, until settling on white.

In the center of the wireframe, an ancient rune made of magical white light appeared.  This rune was one adapted from the rune that Nestor had used to steal and store Leon’s power when he’d invaded his soul realm back when they’d first met.  Leon couldn’t help but feel some kind of satisfaction now that he was using the rune himself.

With all of the enchantments on the wireframe activated, he took one last breath and looked around.  He made eye contact first with Xaphan far below, who almost imperceptibly nodded in support.  Leon grinned back before turning his golden eyes to the Thunderbird.  She made a high-pitched cry to show her support, and buoyed by this show, Leon closed his eyes and reached out to every corner of his soul realm.  Every scrap of power that lay within it was his, generated in his bones or breathed in through his lungs.  All of it responded to his call, eager to do his bidding.

His one final bit of preparation had him manipulating Iron Pride until it floated above the wireframe, the roc feathers hanging off the hilt almost brushing against the top of the piece.

‘Just close enough so that the Iron Needle can act if needed… and possible,’ he thought.  He’d used the Iron Needle before, but handling that much power had been beyond him in those previous attempts.  He was stronger and readier now, though.

With everything done and in place, his eyes still closed, he called his magic to gather.

It started as a trickle, small amounts of power forming thin currents that gently flowed into the wireframe through the open faces.  Once they passed the iron wire, however, the power was trapped.  It was drawn further in by the ancient rune and trapped there by some of the enchantments on the wireframe’s bronze parts.

Leon kept his power moving slowly, wanting to test the wireframe thoroughly with small amounts of power before going in harder.  Though his eyes remained closed, anything in his soul realm that he focused his attention on he could sense with perfect clarity.  He could feel how the iron flexed so minutely that no mortal could perceive it, the bronze as it started to increase in temperature with his magic powering its enchantments, and the Titanstone within as it flexed and liquified, ensuring that magic power was transferred throughout the wireframe almost instantly and without any loss.

He watched for any signs of failures in his enchantments.  He examined every detail of the wireframe to ensure that no microfractures were forming.  He monitored the flow of magic into the frame to confirm that the ancient rune was working the way he wanted it to.

‘Everything’s looking good…’

He increased the flow of magic into the wireframe.  The currents thickened from several small trickles to many thick rivers, with Leon watching the wireframe the entire time.  Power flowed in and did not flow out.

Magic power was normally invisible to the naked eye, but as it gathered in the wireframe, it naturally began to get denser, to the point that a pale white cloud of power began to form within.  As more power entered the wireframe, the thicker the cloud became.

Leon, seeing that the wireframe continued to stand strong, increased the flow again.  Magic power whirled around him so thickly that the clothes of his magic body whipped about.  He heard howling in his ears as the magic raced past his head.

And the cloud in the wireframe thickened.

After about ten minutes, Leon estimated that he’d managed to squeeze about one percent of all the power he’d stored in his soul realm into the wireframe.  An insignificant amount in comparison to the whole of his power, but it was still a tremendous amount of magic—enough that the metal of the wireframe began to creak.

Leon focused again on his creation but didn’t see anything else that concerned him.  His heart had almost stopped when he’d heard the metal creak, but he supposed it was just some natural flexing within the iron and bronze with so much power rushing past it.

He continued with renewed caution.

One percent became two, two became three, and on he went until he’d managed to force ten percent of his magic power into the wireframe.  He’d increased the rate of condensation, so he’d only been working for an hour at that point.

He could sense his magic power swirling around within the frame as the ancient rune at the center struggled to keep up.  Small sparks of silver-blue lightning floated through the now quite visible cloud that had formed within, and as they reached the edges, were drawn to the iron and the bronze.  Tiny arcs of silver-blue lightning raced along the edges of the wireframe every time one of these sparks touched the wires, but they didn’t seem to be having much effect.

Likewise, interspersed throughout the more numerous silver-blue sparks, were darker pinpoints of deepest black.  These were not sparks but rather appeared to be holes in space, points where existence ceased to be.  Leon wasn’t bothered by this; he’d seen both the sparks and these pinpoints before in his previous attempts.  So long as his wireframe continued to work, these didn’t bother him.

More reassuring than his experience, however, was his Ancestor silently watching on.  In his early attempts, she wasn’t shy about coaching him through every little thing, so if she wasn’t seeing anything to be concerned by, then Leon could at least use that as a balm for his anxiety.

After another hour passed, Leon had stuffed twenty percent of his power into the wireframe.  The sparks and black points became more numerous, and the wireframe began to complain more and more loudly and frequently, fraying Leon’s nerves, but he kept going.

The cloud within the wireframe had grown quite thick, to the point that Leon, now watching the wireframe with his eyes open, could barely make out the other side of the wireframe.  The ancient rune continued to aid his condensation, but the magic around it was so dense that it was pushing back out.  It roiled and churned, eddies of power racing through the inside of the wireframe illuminated first by the silver-blue lightning that raced along the iron wires, and then, by a tiny pinprick of white light that appeared in the very center of the ancient rune.

As more power condensed, the brighter this pinpoint of light became.  This was not an Origin Spark, but Leon could feel that he was on the right track.

He kept forcing his magic power into the wireframe.

By the end of his third hour, he was running into difficulties.  A full thirty percent of his power had been squeezed into the wireframe, and he was having to work harder to add more.  To aid him, he finally reached for one of the bottles of ambrosia and popped it open.  There in his soul realm, he didn’t need to drink it for the magic to burst out of the bottle and add itself to his pool.

Unlike the magic power he was controlling, however, this power glowed with golden light and surrounded his magic body.  His mind and body, both exhausted already, had their fatigues eased, letting him work at peak performance for longer.

His fourth hour came and went, and he’d popped two more bottles of ambrosia.  Forty-two percent of his power was packed into the wireframe, and his face had long since started contorting with exertion.  It was a titanic effort to pack more and more power into a space barely larger than his head, but he soldiered on.  This wasn’t his first try, and he was familiar with these pressures.

The pinpoint of light had become blinding, forcing him to close his eyes again.  The cloud surrounding it had continued to thicken, and now those swirling currents of visible power reflected so much of that light that he could barely make out the wireframe even when he tried to vainly open his eyes and glimpse what was happening.

Through all of this, the wireframe screeched and groaned, the metal desperately holding out against the outward pressure of so much condensed power.  Leon was adding much of his own magic to trying to stop it, but given that it was his own power that he was trying to resist, his efforts did little to relax the metal.

His enchantments, however, were all that were keeping the wireframe intact.  His pile of broken wireframes had been built in no small part upon those that hadn’t even made it this far.

And still, he kept on going.

By the fifth hour, all of his ambrosia was gone, spent in his exertions.  All he could rely on to keep more than half of all the power within his soul realm contained in that small space was his own grit and the wireframe that he’d created.

He was vaguely aware that his physical body had collapsed, sweat pouring out of him like it never had before.  His body temperature had spiked past the point of fever, his muscles were quivering, and his bones were starting to fracture, and yet, he kept going, heedless of the damage to his body he was causing.  He considered these light injuries, anyway, that could be fixed with only a few healing spells and as many minutes of rest.

By the end of the sixth hour, he’d managed to pack more than he’d managed before into the wireframe, and pride swelled within him for the object he’d made.  He knew he wouldn’t have made it this far without it.  But he wasn’t sure if he would make it all the way.

The pinpoint of light now drowned out all else that he could see within the wireframe.  His Mind Palace was bathed in this white light, drowning even Xaphan’s brilliant flames.  The ancient rune continued to work, pulling more and more magic into the center of the pinpoint, growing it until reached the size of a bead, and then a fingernail.

Leon could feel the wireframe starting to warp, and he increased the inward pressure, hoping to keep its deformation from breaking the integrity of his enchantment scheme.  Leon found himself barely able to pour more power into the wireframe; he was exhausted and could barely stay in the air.  Around him, the flood of power had been strangled back down into a few trickles as he devoted more and more of his efforts to keeping what he’d already condensed from exploding back outward.

In his previous failed attempts, his power exploding back out hadn’t done any damage, but it had been more and more violent every time.  He supposed this was the main reason why the Thunderbird and Xaphan had advocated for trying this a mile above his Mind Palace since with so much built-up power, he wasn’t sure if he’d get out of this one unscathed if he failed again.

He struggled on, doing his best to force his power into as tight of a space as he could.  All of this was his power, anyway, and he wouldn’t stand for it defying him again.  He willed his power to condense, demanded that it do so, and raged at its rebellion.

Such was how he passed the seven hour mark; exhausted, angry, and determined.

He couldn’t help but wonder how much longer he’d have to do this.  Three-quarters of his power had been forced into the wireframe.  The light was beyond blinding; it filled his entire soul realm, even bending around the many mountain ranges he’d filled his soul realm with.

‘Ignite!’ he shouted in his head.  ‘Ignite, damnit!’

The wireframe screeched as if in response.  He squeezed it like he might a sponge, hell-bent on not letting it fail.

This was it, this was his best chance.  If he failed here, then he was at least a year, if not more, from trying again.  So many people were expecting him to walk out of his meditation chamber a god, and if he were still only a King, he didn’t think he’d be able to show his face publicly for months.

He had to do this here and now.  But more than that, he wanted to do it here and now.  Beneath his exhaustion, his body shivered with desire, the power and understanding of the universe that achieving Apotheosis promised acting like a mirage of water to a man dying of thirst as he shuffled through a desert.

Power, immortality, both were right there, in his grasp, if he could just get this damn Origin Spark to ignite.

He screamed in frustration and indignation.  His power.  It was his.  It should be doing what he wanted it to do.  And he wanted it to ignite.

He reached outward, extending his hand in a futile gesture as if he was going to physically—as much as anything with his magic body could be called ‘physical’—crush his magic into the proper shape.

However, though he didn’t call it, Iron Pride bolted into his hand, its weight immediately calming him down.  Warmth spread from the hilt and into his hand, rushing through his wrist and up his arm, passing his shoulder and filling his body from there like his shoulder was the mouth of a spigot.  Everywhere that warmth touched relaxed.  As it wound its way up his neck, his frustrated scream died.

When it reached his brain, he relaxed so much that his hand fell to his side, Iron Pride still solidly clasped between his fingers.  He opened his eyes, heedless of how the light stabbed his retinas, and stared at what he’d done, at all the power he’d condensed.

This was his power.  He didn’t need to work this hard… did he?

In a moment, everything made sense, like glasses with murky glass had been on his face all his life and only now was he ripping them off.  He couldn’t put the sensation into words, he simply felt like he was seeing the world clearly for the first time.

He raised his empty left hand and stared down at it, oblivious to how the screeching death throes of the wireframe had ceased.  He thought of his power contained in so small a space, and then clenched his fingers, willing it to compress infinitely.

The light flickered out for but a moment, just long enough for him to turn his eyes back to the wireframe.  For the briefest of moments, he saw that the air in the wireframe was perfectly clear, not a single wisp of cloudy power remaining inside of it.  The ancient rune in the center was gone, too.

However, where the ancient rune had hovered, the tiniest bead of blackness, deeper and darker than anything he’d ever seen before—the power of the Great Black Dragon looked positively radiant compared to this—had appeared.  Light from behind this black bead bent around it, forming a bright white halo, mesmerizing in its sheer otherworldliness.

And then the bead exploded.

Leon was blasted back as his soul realm was filled with light.  Magic erupted back into his soul realm, reaching every crack and crevice.  The Mists of Chaos, long ago pushed thousands of miles away, roiled and rippled from the shockwave.

And yet, despite the violence of this explosion, Leon’s soul realm remained intact.  Not a single flower nor blade of grass so much as twitched as his power flooded through his soul realm, restoring the equilibrium that had existed before he’d begun the condensation process.

Leon hit the ground just outside of his Mind Palace with tremendous force, and for a moment, he thought that he’d failed.  Despite the lack of damage to his soul realm, his wireframe had been so violently ripped apart that it had simply ceased to exist.  However, the light that illuminated his soul realm remained, and when he pushed himself back to his feet, he looked up.

He beheld the source of that light: a ball of quivering energy, glowing the brightest, cleanest, purest white, hovering right where the wireframe had been.  It was almost perfectly spherical, with only the faintest of ripples marring its surface, and Leon estimated that it was about twice his height in diameter.

Magic poured from this ball of light like it was the font of all magic.

And mixed in that magic was something else, something as pure as the light itself.  It wasn’t much, barely more than a few drops compared to a raging river, but he could sense it all the same.  It fell from the ball of light directly into his Mind Palace.

Origin power.

From an Origin Spark.

Energy filled him as much as magic did, and he launched himself into the air.  He soared toward the light, and as he entered the path of the origin power, his magic body shuddered.  Power like he’d never known before filled him, and he could feel all of the injuries his physical body had sustained heal instantly.  Tiny aches that he hadn’t noticed vanished, too, and though he still resembled a young man in his late twenties by mortal standards, he could feel his body altering itself, refreshing itself… aging backward.

He could scarcely believe it.  He’d succeeded.

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