My Aspects worked fine. Everyone and everything around me, including myself, all turned a shade of whitish gold as light burned to being in front of us with Illumination, the little glowing orb held up with Gravity’s Siphon.

  I had also woven Flare into the mix with Concentration, though I made sure it wasn’t releasing. Not yet. I needed the heat to come out slowly, not in a bursting flare.

  That was where my new Aspect came in. By using Entropy’s Emission Affix, I could ensure the heat energy was emitted gradually rather than all at once.

  Kind of like a star.

  Of course, it wasn’t easy. I had to make sure I was tying Emission only to Flare, not to Illumination. Light was already a form of emission. I didn’t want to double up on it and make it disappear.

  It was hard. Really difficult. I was pretty sure that as soon as I stopped concentrating on it, the bounds of Emission would expand and cover Illumination, not just Flare, and then the whole thing would dissipate way too quickly. But to run a farm, I needed to provide both heat and light. Technically, the heat was already present, so I didn’t need to ensure it. But still.

  “Wow,” Thefris said. “Hamsik mentioned you wanted to get away from the blood seeds. He didn’t tell me you were going to make your own star!”

  She wasn’t the only one reacting that way. I wasn’t paying a ton of attention, focused as I was on the precise way I needed to combine my Aspects in this scenario, but I still spotted how the others were watching the proceedings. Ascelkos’s face was shining, as much in growing awe as it was thanks to my light. Hamsik was trying not to flinch, while Yerenc peeked over the rim of his umbrella.

  “Almost,” I said. “Not just yet…”

  There was something missing. A link I hadn’t reached yet. Using my Aspects together like that was like fitting puzzle pieces together, and I hadn’t quite managed to get the right picture.

  I still possessed the hollowness within me gifted by my Path Evolution. While I was pretty sure it’d be filled up with a new Aspect, it had reminded me of a different capability.

  One that finally materialized as I configured the exact balance I needed between all my Aspects.

  [ Compound Aspect Discovered!

  You have combined your Flare, Illumination, Gravity, and Entropy Aspects to uncover one of your Compound Aspects.

  Compound Aspect: Protostar ]

  [ Rank Up!

  Your Thauma Attribute has risen by one Rank.

  Your Entropy Aspect has risen by one Rank.

  Thauma: Silver III

  Entropy: Iron V ]

  I let go. Aside from all the Affixes of every individual Aspect that I had used, plus my Manifestation Augmentation to call them all up, I had also tied Permanence to the whole mix.

  So, when I stopped focusing on it, the mixture of Aspects didn’t start fading. The little star I had created continued floating about a dozen feet above the vineyard, shading everything in an artificial facsimile of daylight. Although, using Permanence meant I was perpetually supplying it with mana, which was yet another drain I needed to keep in mind.

  This wasn’t my first use of Permanence. For one, there was the leg that Councillor Ghistara had granted me, which needed a good chunk of my mana to keep running in perpetuity. At least Threaded Reinforcement was helping with that.

  Then I had that Framework of my Entropy Aspect in front of the Nether Vein to keep the burgeoning Netherthreads at bay. Although, that one would be freed once the Councillors came up with their actual countermeasures. I was looking forward to that, and knowing the Councillors, I was pretty certain it wasn’t going to take too long.

  Still. What I really eyed just then was my second mana core.

  “This is great,” Hamsik said. “But I’m concerned about the viability of something like this. I’m aware that you have more mana than all of us here combined, Ross, but how long do you think you can keep something like this up? Especially if we want to extend this process across the entirety of the Kalnislaw vineyards?”

  His concerns were valid. They were stuff I kept thinking about too.

  “I’m not feeling much of a strain just yet,” I said. “And remember, this isn’t the only case of Permanence. I’m using it at the Nether Vein.” I shook my right leg. “I’m using it right here too.”

  “Essentially, you’re good for a few more of these mini-suns, yes?” Thefris asked.

  “Yep. Not that Hamsik’s concerns don’t have merit. I’ll just have to see how much of this I can actually keep up.” I paused, unsure if I really wanted to state my actual concerns because it got into territories that felt weirdly embarrassing. I forged ahead anyway. “What I’m actually worried about is how much this mana drain is going to impact my day-to-day capabilities.”

  “What do you mean?” Hamsik asked.

  I sighed, then explained my fears. If I was using up all this mana for all these permanent activities, then surely I’d be taking a dent to what I could use elsewhere. What if I was fighting someone like Zoltan or Glonek? Or rather, someone far stronger now, because I was stronger too? I’d need to go all out, and if I was limited by my uses of Permanence, that’d be disastrous.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  “Oh.” Hamsik bared his fangs in a little grin. He was looking a little red and splotchy thanks to the sunlight, but he was apparently not letting it get to him. I had also noticed that he had moved in front of Thefris to shade her from the light too. How cute. “I get it now. You’re worried you won’t have enough power to pummel people like you’ve been doing so far.”

  “That’s one way to put it,” I muttered. “But yes, essentially.”

  Hamsik shook his head like it was actually a non-issue. “It’s just a matter of testing, like you yourself said. Push out as many of these mini-suns—”

  “Protostars.”

  “Protostars. Push as many of them out as you can, see how many you can handle. Then come and have a spar with me. Push yourself to your limit, give it everything you’ve got, and see what difference that makes.”

  I stared at him. That was… a simpler solution to the issue than I had thought of. “That makes sense, actually.”

  Thefris elbowed her husband. “I know, I’m surprised when he actually makes sense too.”

  Hamsik scowled at us both.

  Ascelkos, who had been intrigued by my Compound Aspect enough to go right up to it and inspect it from different angles, now turned to face me while clapping. “This is brilliant, Ross! Weaving Aspects like these together to make such complicated interactions look so simple. Magnificent!”

  He was probably gassing me up a little bit, but also, he was normally a pretty genuine guy so I didn’t mind.

  “What do you use in your Bloomwagons as a source of light?” I asked.

  “Lamps, of course.”

  I looked at the vineyards wildly devoid of lamps. “Are simple lamps really enough to grow the plants you use?”

  “Well, they aren’t simple lamps. They’re Enchanted. The Anymphea Spellmachinists have perfected the art of making Greenlights over decades. Nevertheless, it’s costly and takes a good deal of work. If there are suitable alternatives, then it behoves me to explore them to the best of my abilities.”

  Ah, I was starting to get it now. He was wondering if my Protostars could serve the same function as these Greenlights within the Anymphea Bloomwagons. Of course, my issue with using up too much mana still remained. I really needed to find a workaround for that.

  Or maybe, all I needed was my second mana core.

  “Is this an official deal, Lord Anymphea?” Thefris asked shrewdly. The gleam in her eyes was almost predatory. “You get Ross’s new Protostars and in return…”

  Ascelkos slowly turned to her with an appraising look. “I am certainly not averse to making it official. I admit, calling it an official deal besmirches what I like to consider a growing friendship between myself and our dear Ross Moreland. Yet at the same time, I would be horrified to find I was taking advantage of said friendship. Which is why a deal is a good idea.”

  I was honestly not expecting any sort of deals to come about from my little Compound Aspect display, so I supposed I owed Thefris one.

  But then, Ascelkos was right. We were now close enough that I wouldn’t care to form any formal deals with him. We’d help each other where we could. I did have some slight experiences from back on Earth where the formality of doing things for others either turned friendships awkward or soured them entirely, but I wasn’t expecting something like that here.

  Ascelkos was a good guy. As he proved a second later.

  “How about this,” he said. “Clearly, you can provide the power to bring your vineyards back to their original state, and I assume you’ll eventually provide such things such as the seeds, fertilizer, pesticides, and whatnot.” Ascelkos spread his watery arms. “But there is still a decent amount of infrastructure that you’ll need to revitalize your farms. Why not let us handle it?”

  “Infrastructure, huh?” I tried to figure out what that meant in the context of an Ephemeroth farm. “What did you have in mind? Because I’m guessing you don’t mean you’re just going to repair the trellises.”

  “Nothing so simple, no. Instead, I was thinking we could… expand our Bloomwagon technology. Externalize it, if you will.”

  I raised my eyebrow. “Wait, you mean like, you want to make greenhouses?”

  “What are greenhouses?” Hamsik asked.

  He wasn’t the only one looking at me askance. Thefris, Ascelkos, and even Yerenc were all looking at me askance. It was always interesting when I landed upon a little fake abscess of knowledge on Ephemeroth, where the concept kind of already existed, but I was just referring to it in a very unfamiliar way.

  I explained what they were, and even before I was done, Ascelkos’s eyes were lighting up.

  “Aha!” he said. “So you’re already familiar with Bloomwagons. In your own odd way.”

  I laughed a little. “Sort of, yes. But if that’s what you’re going to make, then I’m all aboard. Sounds like something we can explore together.”

  “Yes, exactly! With your sun-summoning powers—excuse my lack of using your better terminology—and our expertise in cultivating techniques, we can perhaps create the best combined manatech on this side of Falsient!”

  I had never heard anyone refer to technology driven by mana as manatech, but it made sense I supposed. Especially when I thought of the word through the perspective of New Zair.

  “Sure.” I smiled. “We’ll give that Spellmachinist from Sinthesar a run for his money.”

  “Oh, that’s one person we definitely cannot hope to match,” Ascelkos said with a laugh. “Paragons are not to be trifled with. As you well know.”

  Damn, that Spellmachinist was a Paragon too?

  Ascelkos and I hashed out some of the details of when we were going to discuss our proposal next. He couldn’t go all in on it just yet. First, he’d need approval from the rest of the Anymphea tribes. Despite his position as a leader, he couldn’t just pursue any old idea he came up with.

  Democratically speaking, that was probably a good thing. So I didn’t mind waiting a bit. It would also give me time to figure out my issues with Permanence and if my second mana core could alleviate it.

  Then again, Hamsik’s idea suggested it might not even be an issue in the first place. I somehow doubted that.

  For the time being, we all parted. Hamsik and Thefris were going on a date. Or, at least, that’s how I thought of it when they mentioned they were heading out to enjoy the night. I also made sure to tell Yerenc that the vineyards would be seeing a lot more visits and not just from me. There would be other workers and tenders, from Ring Four especially.

  “I have no problem with the Scarthralls, my lord,” Yerenc said. “All devotees of blood are welcome upon the Kalnislaw lands.”

  “Well… we’ve been trying to get them away from blood, so uh, please try not to tempt them with blood truffles and the like.”

  Yerenc’s face visibly fell at that. But he marshalled his expression admirably. “Of course, my lord.”

  I decided to let his mutters about disavowing blood being some sort of sacrilege pass. For now, there was just one more thing I wanted to test. The others had left, but that was fine.

  As I stepped closer to the Protostar, even I had to squint at the brightness. Heat washed over me, though I didn’t feel it as intensely as I suspected I should have. Maybe the Flare Affix I was going for was helping.

  “Wonder what I’m going to get,” I said as I raised my hand. “When I Sacrifice a Protostar.”

  Threads of burning white latched onto the glimmering orb in front of me, turning it the colour of ivory before it disappeared.

  [ Sacrifice

  You have Sacrificed 1 [Moderate] Cast of 1 Compound Aspect. Windfall bonus activated.

  Reward: Aspected mana from Compound Aspect now suffuses your body. Next Compound Aspect cast costs no mana. ]

  The reward was strange, though I had to pause considerations because my body was getting flooded with a huge surge of magical energy. I couldn’t even separate all the different sensations running riot through me.

  Overheated power went hand in hand with the sensation of mass flowing into me, mass that could change its weight spontaneously. Then there was all the burning light now making me look like a living sun, shading my skin in glowing white-gold. All of which was slowly but constantly emitting off me like I was a source of radiation now.

  “Are… you alright, my lord?” Yerenc asked. He had hastily brought up his umbrella.

  “I…”

  I took a second to figure out if I really did feel okay. The energy coursing through me didn’t want to be contained. But at the same time, it wasn’t depleting.

  Huh. So it wasn’t just the Aspected Mana that Sacrifice had granted me. I had gained something like Permanence as well, where instead of an external mini-sun draining me constantly, now I had the constituent Aspects writhing within me like I was the mini-sun.

  “Are you… going to always be like this now, my lord?” Yerenc asked.

  I looked down at my hands. Shining and golden and heated. Huh. It made me feel like I was making progress towards my new Flare Affix. “No, I’m going to release it back.”

  It took just a bit of focus to recast Protostar, the churning energy within my body slowly leaving to recreate that miniature sun over the vineyard. The difference now was that I felt a tug even after I released all the energy, and when I followed it, a second Protostar formed, without any extra cost at all.

  My eyes widened as I laughed. Alright, so this Sacrifice was pretty worth it.