Chapter 74

Xafsa observed attentively as the plantoid tissues suspended within the viscous medium of my [Vitality] globe endured every environmental stress it imposed upon it without displaying any reaction considered immediately concerning.

Elevated temperature.

Localized damage.

Minor toxins.

My manifested [Vitality] allowed it to endure each.

Not perfectly.

But sufficiently.

Damaged cells were dismantled.

Functional replacements formed.

The tissue preserved its biological identity while altering its processes according to what continued existence required.

Once the final imposed stress ended, it settled back toward its baseline state rather than remaining trapped within an emergency response.

Then... it continued living, and I persisted [Will]ing my concept of [Vitality] into existence.

In the meantime, Xafsa's sensory filaments surrounded my [Vitality] globe from several angles, most certainly following changes too minute for my [Awareness] to distinguish, while I stood beside the apparatus and waited.

One second.

Two.

Ten.

Xafsa remained silent.

The energy expenditure barely mattered.

Eventually, Xafsa withdrew several sensory filaments from the globe.

"You may cease."

Hearing his words, I released my [Will].

The gold pulsing through the viscous medium faded.

The plantoid tissue remained stable.

Xafsa observed it for several more seconds before turning its attention toward me.

"You have acquired sufficient control to attempt the next phase under supervision."

Finally.

"As we already discussed, the [Vitality] integration phase will involve applying your manifested concept of [Vitality] to your own biological vessel," Xafsa continued. "You will begin with a noncritical peripheral region. You will maintain minimal intensity. And you will cease the instant I instruct you to."

The next phase.

The second-to-last one before the Aspect formation phase.

But instead of calling it the [Vitality] integration phase, I had a better name for it.

The [Vitality] [Cultivation] phase.

Manifesting my [Vitality] within myself.

Allowing it to interact with my body.

Adapting my concept to the existence whose Path it would eventually become part of.

Then... using it to achieve what I had always wanted since the first introductory text I read on [Vitality], back when I was still [Tempering] my body without constantly calculating how much Essence development every [Exertion] might inflict upon me.

Allow my physical vessel to recover better and quicker from anything.

From deprivation.

From strain.

From injury.

From pushing my biological processes until they failed.

From forcing my heart, muscles, nerves, and blood to operate under conditions they had never been designed to endure.

From pushing my body [Cultivation] higher and higher so it could in turn withstand even greater and more intensive forms of [Cultivation] afterward...

This had been, and was still, the primary motivation that made my formation of the [Vitality] Aspect inevitable.

Because I required an Aspect capable of allowing my own Path to survive my [Ambition].

As for the ability to heal others?

That had always been incidental.

Useful.

Convenient.

An application that could earn me reputation.

[Knowledge].

Authority.

Access to patients, procedures, institutions, and resources otherwise beyond my reach through sheer growth.

But incidental nonetheless.

I had never wanted to be able to wield [Vitality] like another of my limbs because I wished to dedicate my Path to preserving strangers.

I wanted it because my body was mine.

Because its limitations were my limitations.

Because every increase in what it could endure expanded what I could attempt.

And now...

After years of being forced to restrain the very practices that had first made [Vitality] necessary...

I could finally begin.

"I am ready," I stated.

"Sit wherever you find appropriate," Xafsa replied. "I will intervene if the reaction exceeds your control."

And that was it.

No specialized chamber.

No restrictive apparatus.

No prepared compounds.

No assistant waiting with emergency instruments.

Just... Xafsa's office and its assurance that it would intervene.

Then again...

Xafsa was a Restorer.

If it didn't consider further preparation necessary, either the risk remained low, or it possessed enough [Mastery] of flawed [Vitality]-induced afflictions to make the distinction irrelevant.

Thinking so, I flew toward an unused section of one broad work surface, landed, and sat with my legs folded beneath me.

My right hand rested palm-up across one knee.

I was ready.

I [Will]ed a wisp of [Vitality] into existence.

Gold emerged over my palm.

Small.

Stable.

Pulsing according to the coherent rhythm I had refined over the previous months.

I lowered it.

Then unhesitatingly infused it into my hand.

Warmth spread through my palm.

Not surface warmth.

It emerged from within.

A deep tingling propagated outward from the point of entry as my manifested [Vitality] dispersed through the tissues it touched.

Skin.

Underlying connective structures.

Small blood vessels.

Nerves.

Muscle fibers.

The outermost portions of the bones supporting my palm.

Everything absorbed energy.

As it should.

My concept of [Vitality] had been built primarily from [Life] understood as a conceptual form of [Energy].

Not energy stored without [Purpose].

Energy transformed into persistence.

Movement.

Adaptation.

Recovery.

The capacity of a living structure to act against whatever sought to diminish it.

Warmth and energy were expected.

Then the warmth became heat.

The tingling sharpened.

Prickling spread through my flesh as though countless tiny points were pressing outward from inside my palm.

A minute later...

The sensation became painful.

Burning.

I [Will]ed my [Awareness] heightened.

My [Clarity] rose alongside it.

My [Harmony] separated every perceived reaction while preserving the relationships between them.

My [Purity] assisted by helping me distinguish my natural biological processes from those altered by my manifested concept.

All four overlapped and synergized easily, and under that scrutiny, pain ceased being merely pain.

It became information.

Blood vessels widened.

Blood flow increased.

The cells lining those vessels accelerated their maintenance processes despite having suffered no meaningful damage.

The metabolic activity of my palm tissues rose.

Energy reserves were extracted and consumed.

Heat accumulated faster than circulation could disperse it.

Proteins were produced.

Others were dismantled.

Cellular membranes began renewing portions of themselves without need.

Several clusters of skin cells entered division.

Minor imperfections within connective tissue were identified as injuries and subjected to repair.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from NovelPhoenix; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

My manifested [Vitality] wasn't merely supplying energy.

It was making everything work.

Faster.

Multiple times faster than my biological processes were meant to operate.

As though every cell had been informed that continued existence required immediate action.

I attempted to touch my thumb to my little finger.

The muscles within my palm contracted.

Then convulsed.

My thumb jerked inward.

My little finger barely moved.

Several intrinsic muscle groups activated simultaneously despite having incompatible functions, their accelerated nerve responses and heightened metabolic states disrupting the precise sequence required for such a simple motion.

I tried again.

The result worsened.

My palm tightened into a partial spasm.

It was so... fascinating to have my own body refuse my [Will] and to simultaneously comprehend why it was doing it.

My [Vitality] concept still equated increased biological capacity with increased biological activity too readily.

Within the [Vitality] globe, the complete balance of the concept had prevented that tendency from destabilizing the plantoid tissue.

Within my body...

The biological context was too different.

My cells possessed specializations absent from the responsive plantoid sample.

My muscles required ordered activation rather than generalized vigor.

My nerves depended upon precise timing.

My blood transported far more than nutrients.

My tissues were organized around mechanical relationships the plantoid sample had never possessed.

The only reason my manifestation wasn't slowly killing my hand was that I maintained its energy expenditure at the absolute minimum.

The wisp had barely spread beyond the center of my palm.

It had not reached my fingers.

It hadn't even saturated the whole of my palm.

Had I supplied enough energy for it to spread through my arm...

The resulting systemic reactions would have been extensive.

Potentially catastrophic, if I maintained it for longer than half an hour.

Had those reactions occurred within my [Vitality] globe, I would have released the manifestation, recorded everything, then departed for the Aspirant repositories to correct my concept through further study.

But this wasn't a plantoid sample.

This was my body.

And my [Comprehension] and [Mastery] of my own biology occupied the uppermost Strata of all my [Life] [Knowledge].

No species was more familiar to me.

No anatomy had been observed more thoroughly.

No biological process had been tested under more conditions.

No body had been injured, repaired, altered, deprived, exhausted, and tempered beneath my [Awareness] as often as mine.

Meaning I could finally carry out what this phase was truly meant to accomplish.

I ignited my [Ambition].

My energy expenditure surged.

My [Will] poured into my [Clarity].

My [Awareness].

My [Comprehension].

My [Harmony].

My [Mastery].

My [Purity].

Every Aspect part of my Path with the exception of [Secrecy] deepened beneath the weight of my [Will] and my [Ambition].

The structures of my palm opened before me.

Not literally.

More thoroughly than that.

I beheld blood entering through branching vessels.

The resistance of each channel.

The exchange of nutrients, air, heat, waste, and energy as parts of my physiological [Cultivation] [Cycle] coursed through it.

The layers of my skin.

The connective structures binding them to what lay beneath.

Muscle fibers arranged according to movements too subtle to notice until their coordination failed.

Tendons transferring force toward my fingers.

Nerves branching into increasingly fine endings.

Cells reacting to the influence imposed upon them.

Some welcomed it.

Some entered various states of over[Exertion].

Some altered their behavior according to signals that had never been intended to carry so much urgency.

I distinguished every reaction I could.

Then commanded [Guided] to retrieve everything related to them.

[Guided] answered, and my mind opened to so much more...

My old [Tempering] experiments.

My new [Cultivation] practices.

Injuries.

Healing.

Dissections.

Pulse texts.

Xafsa's corrections.

Procedures performed upon muscular, vascular, neural, and connective structures across dozens of species.

Every relevant fragment of [Knowledge] surfaced.

Not all applied.

[Purity], above all my other Aspects, allowed me to separate what didn't.

[Mastery] exposed which relationships I only recognized without commanding.

[Harmony] wove what remained around the living structure beneath my [Awareness].

Then I began adapting my [Vitality].

Not afterward.

Not within a repository.

Now.

While it burned through my flesh.

I tuned it to my skin.

Reduced its tendency to interpret harmless irregularities as injuries.

Distinguished maintenance from repair.

Allowed cellular renewal only where existing structures displayed actual deterioration.

The burning lessened across the surface.

I tuned it to my muscles.

Separated available capacity from active contraction.

Prevented increased energy from becoming an indiscriminate command to move.

Tied metabolic acceleration to actual demand rather than the mere presence of [Vitality].

The convulsions weakened.

I touched my thumb to my little finger.

The motion remained unsteady.

But it succeeded.

I tuned my [Vitality] to my bones.

Not by making them denser.

Not by stimulating pointless reinforcement.

By allowing the living structures within them to preserve the conditions required for their continued maintenance without attempting to remodel what had suffered no relevant stress.

I tuned it to my blood.

Its dissolved substances.

Its transport functions.

Its capacity to distribute heat and remove what accelerated tissues produced.

I tuned it to my every cell...

And I altered my concept of [Vitality] based upon what my Aspects enabled me to glimpse.

Then I pushed deeper.

Cellular energy production.

Waste accumulation.

Membrane stability.

Protein construction.

Protein dismantling.

The thresholds between adaptation and damage.

Between repair and needless replacement.

Between biological urgency and biological panic.

Every facet of my [Vitality] had to be adjusted.

Not merely to baseline fairy physiology.

To my physiology.

My [Cultivation] [Cycle].

My countless adaptations produced over years of [Tempering] and [Cultivation].

The manner in which [Guided] had repeatedly forced structures to repair themselves according to states that might no longer be wholly natural.

The complexity was immense.

A transition from one simple, deliberately responsive plantoid tissue sample to an entire sapient fairy body.

And I was only applying it to my palm.

Yet, unheeding of that scale...

I continued.

My [Ambition] burned hotter and hotter.

My energy reserves fell.

The golden [Vitality] pulsed stronger without burning hotter.

I made it adapt to what it touched.

I made it change through changing my [Comprehension] of it.

My tissues stopped reacting as though an emergency had been declared.

Heat still accumulated.

Cells still consumed more than necessary.

Some muscle fibers remained overactive.

Several regions had suffered minor damage from the initial reaction and now entered accelerated repair.

But the whole was improving.

Becoming compatible.

Becoming mine.

"That should be sufficient for your first attempt."

Xafsa's voice cut through the [Clarity] of my [Focus].

Looking at the clock, a quarter of an hour had passed.

My entire energy reserves had been wiped.

My palm was hot and swollen, its skin reddened.

And beneath the surface...

Several muscles displayed minor tearing from repeated convulsions.

Small vessels had leaked enough fluid into surrounding tissues to produce localized pressure.

Some cells had divided when they shouldn't have.

Others had exhausted their immediate reserves and entered impaired states despite the energy my [Vitality] continued supplying.

Nothing I couldn't correct.

Nothing remotely threatening.

I could continue.

Another quarter of an hour would allow me to resolve several remaining conflicts.

But one fact prevented me from doing so...

Xafsa had formed and advanced its own [Vitality] Aspect.

It had thus experienced this phase before.

Hence, ignoring its words without first understanding their reason because I believed I could endure more would be stupidity.

I soothed my [Ambition].

Ceased [Will]ing my [Vitality] into existence.

The faint gold glow that had suffused my palm faded.

I started [Will]ing the damages away while dealing with the aftermath.

Cooling.

Redistributing resources.

Stabilizing damaged tissues.

"Come back once you can explain why the increased local energy availability caused the distal portion of your palm to enter an ischemic response," Xafsa said, dismissing me.

However, surprisingly...

"If you mean the transient reduction in blood reaching the outer palm despite the overall dilation..."

I knew what it just asked me about without even needing to resort to [Guided].

And I knew much more than just that, too, as I had already discerned the issue with my [Awareness], but simply hadn't had the time to tune my [Vitality] yet

"...then my [Vitality] interpreted the overexertion markers released by the central tissues as evidence that the most active region required preservation over less active peripheral structures. It increased local resource retention while reducing exchange with adjacent regions..."

Soon enough, however, I reached the end of my [Comprehension].

Not that I gave up.

I called upon [Guided] to review the various reactions that occurred.

And from there, I resumed my exposition.

"...my [Vitality] also masked my tissues' growing shortage of air and nutrients. They retained enough energy to keep functioning, so the signals that should have produced broader vascular compensation manifested late. Simultaneously, accelerated activity increased waste faster than the existing flow could remove it..."

Then I provided the solution I intended to implement.

"...that's why resource mobilization must remain bound to exchange capacity, waste removal, heat dispersal, and regional circulation. Though it remains to be seen how that will play out in practice."

Xafsa remained silent for a full ten seconds in the wake of my discourse.

"Why did your cells begin differentiating within the central muscle before damaged fibers were cleared?" then it asked something else, not addressing what I just said.

"My [Vitality] prioritized replacement too close to the onset of detected structural deviation. New tissues were introduced before damaged fibers were cleared, destabilizing various alignments even if every individual cell remained healthy..."

I also had an answer for that.

"...the issue most likely stems from how I dealt with such conflict in my plantoid tissue testing. My [Vitality] concept allows controlled destruction and replacement to overlap because the sample tissues tolerated simultaneous turnover..."

"...as for my intended solution, it is for replacement within structured muscle to wait until damaged fibers are either cleared or healed. Otherwise, healthy new cells can differentiate into..."

"Not bad," Xafsa eventually said. "What about..."

Then the questioning continued.

Why had heat production remained elevated after metabolic activity began falling?

Why had several small vessels become more permeable?

Why had the skin renewed unevenly?

Why had one muscle group responded to increased [Vitality] with contraction while another had temporarily weakened?

Some answers emerged from my own [Comprehension].

Others required [Guided].

A few depended upon [Life] [Knowledge] I hadn't consciously connected until the question forced me to.

I answered.

Was corrected.

Adjusted.

Answered again.

It was indistinguishable from how we usually interacted throughout the times we spent together during our respective duties.

The subject had simply shifted to my [Vitality], with every correction bringing me closer to forming an Aspect shaped from a concept I built from nothing but [Knowledge], [Comprehension], [Mastery], and [Ambition].

Eventually, however, Xafsa's questioning ended.

"It appears your [Comprehension] is sufficient for independent continuation," it judged. "Your limiting factor is only your [Mastery]. Still, you may proceed without my direct supervision from now on, provided you restrict initial applications to peripheral regions and cease whenever your control degrades."

"Understood," I acknowledged without delay.

"Keep me updated regarding all substantial changes, unexplained reactions, and expansion into new biological systems, notably sensitive organs."

"I will."

"Do not mistake your [Awareness] of your body for complete [Comprehension] of it."

"I won't."

"And continue using the [Vitality] globe. Your body will reward solutions compatible with your physiology, but that does not make them conceptually sound. Use the globe to test arrangements deliberately separated from your personal requirements."

"To prevent adapting my concept so narrowly to myself that it ceases to represent [Vitality] beyond my existence, yes," I completed.

"If you understand, then you may leave."

I stood.

My palm still ached, but the pain barely registered beside the implications of what had just occurred.

I was so close.

No more [Will]ing my [Vitality] concept into open air merely to prove that it could manifest.

From now onward, I would infuse it into my body.

Observe what failed.

Adapt it.

Manifest it again.

Palm.

Fingers.

Wrist.

Arm.

Blood.

Nerves.

Organs.

Wings.

My entire physical vessel.

One cell after another, until my [Vitality] no longer entered my body as a foreign influence imposed through [Will] alone.

Until it belonged.

Until my every tissue recognized it.

Until even my Essence did.

My [Ambition] trembled with anticipation at fulfilling yet another once seemingly impossible undertaking.

For now, however...

I still had books to read.

My first self-application had exposed deficiencies no [Vitality] globe could have revealed.

Deficiencies in circulation.

Neural environments.

Tissue alignment.

The sequencing of cellular destruction and replacement.

Heat regulation.

Each demanded yet greater [Knowledge].

And the ocean of [Life] [Knowledge] that [Guided] could summon remained far from complete.

So I left Xafsa's office and once more headed for the Aspirant repository floors.